


growing together

by mindshelter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Recovery, another incidence of Please Let Peter Rest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-11-23 23:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20897903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindshelter/pseuds/mindshelter
Summary: "It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Peter — where are your manners? Introductions."Her boyfriend — at least, she’s pretty sure he is — in classic teenager form, buries his face into his palms — a move that makes the older man roll his eyes — before he gestures between her and Tony, grumbling, "This is MJ. MJ, Tony. Tony, MJ.""Hi," Tony says, smiling.(mj obtains a boyfriend and gets acquainted with the rest of his family.)





	1. breathtaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ciaconnaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaconnaa/gifts).

> wow what a fic title my bad i had like negative a billion ideas lol 
> 
> some notes ahead of reading:  
1\. tony's not dead because i said so and peter doesn't get his identity exposed at the end of ffh  
2\. yes this is a michelle and tony bond over peter fic. if i can't find that content i will write it 
> 
> Tony: my boy,,, , is dating. I Must Bond With the Significant Other  
Peter: stop you're embarrassing me

_Michelle’s first encounter with Peter Parker was nothing peculiar. _

_Asthma attack aside._

_Midtown is dusty and old_—_who _knows_ what’s trapped inside its walls? Asbestos? Dead rats? Mold? Sin?_

_The boy sitting to her left for the entrance exam had the great misfortune of being placed next to a bookshelf, coloured an ugly, chipping turquoise and holding books that looked like they hadn’t been touched in millennia. Every nook is covered in a film of fuzzy white gray._

_Twenty minutes in, around the time Michelle reaches question 13 on the mathematics booklet, she hears coughing and turns to see the boy_—_thin and tiny and wearing some nerdy graphic tee—go alert with panic as his breaths grow shorter and shorter._

_He drops his pencil and twists behind him to grab something from his backpack the same time the teacher, reclining on a rolling chair near the whiteboard says, “You do not have access to supplementary materials during the exam; keep your eyes on your own paper or you will be disqualified.”_

_The boy actually pauses at that, though he looks like he wants to say something judging by the scrunch of frustration in his eyebrows that peek through his growing distress. All that comes out is a hard wheeze and another forceful cough. _

_It’s no good. His breaths get quicker and he clutches at his chest, eyes getting big and scared. With one last look at the exam proctor at the front, he rushes for his backpack, fingers shaking as he fumbles with the front pocket of his bag. _

_“Hey!” the teacher shouts, getting up. _

Oh my God, chill,_ Michelle thinks. _

_"He’s having an asthma attack!"_

_Expression going from angry to surprised, the teacher takes quick steps to where Michelle is seated, mumbling something that sounds like rapid-fire _oh shit_s. _

_The zipper slips through his hands three times and by the time he digs out his inhaler, he’s visibly weaker. _

_Concerned, Michelle slips out of her seat with a screech from pushing her desk legs ahead and crouches next to him. She helps guide the medicine to his mouth, one hand wrapped around his smaller one to hold the inhaler still, the other on one of his bony shoulders. The teacher is by their side a few moments later. _

_He takes several puffs, frantic at first and then progressively calmer. It takes a full minute of heavy but full breaths for his complexion to return to normal. _

_Even sitting down, Michelle can guess he’s probably a full head shorter than her. He looks fifty pounds soaking wet, his t-shirt, which says _RIP boiling water, you will be mist_ hanging loose on his small frame. _

_At this point the remaining students in the class had completely lost focus on the exam. The teacher glances at the out-of-control room of twelve and thirteen-year-olds and sighs. _

_The first thing that comes out of asthma boy’s mouth once he catches his breath is, “Um, sorry.” _

_Then, “Uh. Am I disqualified?” _

_The teacher sighs, louder, massaging their temples. Like they’re dying inside. Like the creak of their fissuring soul, its resonant frequency overlapping perfectly with the screams of prepubescent teenagers. _

_“No.” _

_A kid at the other end of the classroom asks (literally shouts at the top of their lungs, and _she’s_ twelve but God are twelve-year-olds ever stupid) what the answer to question 7 is. _

_“Everyone stay in your seats, eyes on your own papers!” _

___ _

_Asthma boy’s name is Peter. _

_MJ learns this during homeroom roll-call months later during her first day at Midtown, almost not responding to his own name because he’s too preoccupied chattering with the boy next to him_—_Ned Leeds, she thinks. _

_For someone with such appallingly bad lungs, it seems that Peter’s voice box mileage is pretty extensive. _

__

The scene that greets her at Tower Bridge is an absolute catastrophe. Abandoned cars are strewn along the road, all sporting dented metal skeletons. The smell of spilt gasoline and smoke and melting plastic waft into her nose, heavy and sour. She steps around shattered glass, robots coated in webbing, exoskeletons cracked like they’ve been punched. 

She’s halfway across, chest growing heftier with worry when she spots Peter, limping and bloody but alive. The mace slips out of her hands with a clunk and she makes a mad dash towards him.

He doesn’t meet her halfway, favouring one foot over the other, brows scrunched as if trying to figure out if she’s really in front of him.

Her arms wrap around him. Peter mirrors her with a soft exhale, and the muscles under his ruined suit relax under her palms, which still shake as her nerves continue to discharge with urgency, electricity at her fingers. 

She hears him sigh against her shoulder. 

He sounds exhausted, he _looks_ exhausted, blood drying against his cheekbone and below his nostrils. Grimy, sweaty hair.

She doesn’t know what’s making her pulse go haywire—be it from adrenaline or nervousness—when she pecks him on the lips. Just for a fraction of a second, a ghost of a touch.

From behind her, the overturned car’s fire spreads to its tires. The heat clings to her clothes and radiates outwards, cozy and toasty against the chilly London wind.

Through a half laugh, eyes glimmering with a happiness that drives the doves in her stomach into a frenzy, Peter says, “I really like you.”

They kiss again, longer this time.

And again, bolder. Peter has to go on his toes while MJ tilts her head down. His hand moves hold her right arm, careful, still erring on the side of tentative.

__

At the airport, MJ comes across a gift shop and buys him a tiny spoon. The end of the handle is moulded to look like the Big Ben. Peter laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

__

After the plane touches down in Newark with a jolt, Peter fishes out his phone—a new one with a new number—and takes it off airplane mode to dial his aunt. They exchange _see you soon_s and _I love you_s before he hangs up and gives MJ a tap on the shoulder.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asks. “May can probably drive you.” 

MJ had just been planning to take an Uber; it’s mid-afternoon and her brother is probably swamped in side-projects at work. Offering a ride is both the polite thing to do and an obvious plea to spend another hour together before parting ways.

Well. Nothing dreadful about that.

__

Peter visibly brightens when he spots May trying to talk a parking officer out of giving her a ticket, practically skipping over to wrap her in a hug. His aunt ruffles her nephew’s hair a few times before they pull away and she looks past him to send MJ a grin.

She and Peter have the same smile; front teeth exposed, the space under the eyes puffing up and the sides crinkling before their lips even turn up. At a rough estimate, the wattage is at about a million or so.

MJ waves, a little self-conscious. “Hi, Mrs. Parker.”

“Is it okay if we give MJ a ride home?” Peter asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Strangely, May bristles, just for a moment.

“Well—” she starts, before pausing and squinting at nothing. Peter tilts his head, confused as he and MJ watch the woman’s face journey—best described as the five stages of grief — before she plasters on a forced smile. “Sure. You’ll both have to sit at the back, though; there’s some cargo sitting at the passenger seat.”

__

“What the fuck?”

“Well, _that’s_ no way to greet someone.”

The cargo, as it turns out, is Tony Stark.

He throws up a peace sign. Peter breathes through his nose and out with his mouth.

MJ has seen some shit and done some shit in the past few days—what’s another potato in the potato stew? 

Peter’s demeanor goes from cheerful to spooked so quickly that he’s speechless. He pulls his head out of the car halfway to getting in, looking across to where May is getting into the driver’s seat with no small amount of panic.

May winces but sends Peter a reassuring smile. “He insisted, hon; sorry,” she says, shrugging.

Peter settles into the back of the car, a perfect example of a deer-in-headlights. He struggles to fasten his seatbelt, eyes on the older man riding shotgun while MJ hesitantly enters the car too.

Finally, Tony says, “Hi, Pete. Good trip?”

Peter’s face contorts. “Yes?” Then, “You could have—you could have let me know you were coming.”

“Ohhh, so we _are_ in the business of telling people what we’re doing under conditions where it may be relevant to them? You gotta let me know when you switch gears, Pete — my old man heart doesn’t like big surprises like this.”

Peter’s eyes narrow into half-slits, and he scowls. “I was going to see you this evening.”

“Yeah—well, this just demonstrates that being petty gets you places faster, eh?”

May sighs.

Tony—Tony _Stark_—shifts his attention to MJ. There’s no shortage of bedazzled tales from reporters or people who encounter celebrities in the deep wild of everyday life, accounts ranging from humanizing to ostentatious descriptions on how larger-than-life they are. 

The older man in the passenger seat does, indeed, look like a real person. He’s visibly older than any photo of him circulating the internet — most, if not all of them five years outdated. The hair on the sides of his head is graying and he has prominent crow’s feet flaying out against the skin by his left eye. The other side is mottled, a moon-crater texture of bumpy smooth scar tissue.

Tony arches his head so that the rougher portion of her face is angled out of sight. MJ realizes she’d been staring.

“You must be MJ,” he says. “Peter talks about you a _lot_.”

Peter loosens slightly at the jab, some of the tension uncoiling, unfurling. “Tony!" 

Tony huffs, amused but still visibly subdued.

May starts the car and boards the freeway headed back to New York proper. She asks MJ for her home address while Tony and Peter sit politely in their seats.

This continues for the next ten minutes, no one in the car saying anything at all. Every once in a while MJ looks in Peter’s direction in hopes that he’ll elaborate, but he just fidgets with his phone, not looking up from his lap while Tony props his right arm—a metal prosthetic—on the ridges of the car door and stares out the window, fixated on the wharfs leaking into gray river water. When he gets bored with the view, he starts playing around with the car’s AC and radio dials until May smacks his hand away.

Once they’re out of New Jersey and crossing through Manhattan, the silence gets too unbearable for Peter and he caves.

“Tony, listen,” he says, “Beck was trying to lure you out—I couldn’t contact you—” 

“Interesting alibi, kiddo, but you could have at the very least let me know you were safe,” Tony fires back. It’s vehement, but his voice is soft. Tired. “You know, instead of letting me find out your vacation turned SHIELD op through Happy, who, by the way, only told me because I asked.”

“I had it handled.”

A sigh. “I know you did—but that’s not the point.”

They start arguing like MJ and May aren’t in the car with them, Peter finally letting his eyes meet the other man’s own irritated face. MJ’s attention flickers between the two men as they speak in vicious, crabby tones. 

Under the annoyance, Tony Stark sounds… protective. Maybe even offended. Or hurt? 

“May’s being chill about it—”

His aunt cuts him off. “Oh, no, no, Peter. Darling, you are not using me as fodder.”

“Wh—” 

May keeps her attention on the road, but her grip against the wheel remains tight as she turns the cruise control on. “I have raised you since you were five—do you think your compartmentalization habits manifested out of thin air? No, because you’re not the first one in this family to pop your problems into a Ziploc bag and stick it in the freezer for later.” 

MJ has to put in real effort to keep her face neutral. That was a laser-guided jab.

“May—”

“So right now, I am very happy to see my nephew in one piece and drive all the way to New Jersey to get him. I have the hot buttered bagels you like,” she says. “And when we get home—_then_ I will be upset.”

“Yeah, Peter—”

“Tony, I am not on Peter’s side, but I am not on yours either.”

“Sorry.”

May sighs, again. There’s a lot of sighing to do in this household, apparently.

“Peter, being a superhero is dangerous and Tony is very sensitive. Tony, Peter is someone who always answers the call, fortunately or unfortunately. That’s why I packed his suit. He also had good reason to hold back on contacting you if he thought you were a target.”

“I could have figured a way around that,” Tony insists.

Peter groans, exasperated. “It’s more than that, though — if I told you, you would have tried to intervene! Beck wanted to use me as bait – there was no way I was going to let that happen —”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.” 

“Beck was _insane_, you need to understand that if you were in danger —”

“You need to trust me!” Peter butts in, raising his voice.

They’d been keeping their voices level and low the whole time and the spike in volume almost makes MJ jump. “I wasn’t about to put _you_ in danger because you’re still _healing_ and you have Morgan to worry about now, Tony!”

At the same time Peter realizes he shouted and deflates, shamefaced, Tony lets out a large breath, sinking into his seat.

“I do trust you, Pete,” he says, as calmly and slowly as he seems to be able to manage. “But I — just can’t not worry.” 

“I’m fine,” Peter insists. “I’m sorry for yelling.”

“Are you hurt?”

“_No_ — I’m okay now. Really.”

“Keyword: now.”

“I just want you to be safe.”

“I know.”

The images of Peter—favouring one side, red eyes and carmine blood that ran down his cheeks in splotches, the burnt suit, the rancid and hot smoke—flash through her mind. By the time they had gone through security and boarded the plane, Peter was dead to the world and nuzzled against her neck.

There isn’t a trace of those injuries now and the burnt smell that rolled off of him when they held each other is gone, washed away by soap and shampoo.

“I’m not mad at you—just putting that out there to clear the air,” Tony says, before he pauses and through the rear-view mirror MJ sees him frown. “Actually, I am kind of mad and we are definitely going to have a mature, in-depth follow-up discussion in the very near future, but I’m _mostly_ not mad at _you_.”

Peter groans, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I’ll take it, I guess.”

“I’m all about value deals,” Tony agrees.

Then, like a switch has been flipped, Tony perks up and his demeanor becomes more cheerful. He claps his hands together lightly as if nothing is wrong and as if this isn’t the strangest and most awkward car ride MJ had ever been in.

“Apologies, MJ; that was terribly impolite.”

Not sure how else to respond, MJ shrugs. “Sounds like that conversation couldn’t wait.”

Tony laughs thinly. “I’ll say I wasn’t expecting the extra passenger today,” he says, “but it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Peter— where are your manners? Introductions.”

Her boyfriend—at least, she’s pretty sure he is—in classic teenager form, buries his face into his palms — a move that makes the older man roll his eyes—before he gestures between her and Tony, grumbling, “This is MJ. MJ, Tony. Tony, MJ.”

“Hi,” Tony says, smiling.

“Hello…?" 

The car stops at an intersection and May turns around, sending MJ an apologetic smile. “Everyone,” she says, tone measured, withering, “eat a bagel or so help me _God_.”

Tony and Peter both shrink.

When the light switches to green, May gives MJ another look. “It’s great to have you here.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Parker.”

It takes another half-hour or so to reach MJ’s place in Forest Hills.

At her driveway, Peter tells May and Tony to stay in the car and exits to get MJ’s backpack and suitcase from the trunk.

As Peter slides her luggage over to her and she accepts the backpack from his hands, she says, “Dude, what?" 

Peter grimaces and sags. “Oh my God I’m so sorry about that.”

MJ’s not upset or anything like that—nothing bad happened. Her curiosity is piqued more than anything. “It’s fine—I was just—not expecting that.”

“Still, that was like, so awkward,” he insists. “And we literally started arguing—holy shit I’m so sorry, we’re normally chill I promise.”

“Peter. It’s okay.”

Peter exhales through his nostrils and slumps a little. “This trip was wack beginning to end,” he says.

MJ kisses him on the cheek to make him calm down. “At least we’re being consistent. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow?”

He nods, dopey smile spreading across his face before he leans in again and presses his lips to hers. They’ve kissed more than a couple times now—enough for MJ to figure out that Peter is still timid about how much pressure to apply, each touch featherlight, though gradually getting bolder—but MJ feels butterflies in her stomach whenever they do, nonetheless.

__

Their first date isn’t their eight hours on the plane home from Europe—as nice as that was, as Peter ends up attesting in the future, he’d spent most of the flight knocked out, either dozing off on MJ’s shoulders or half-conscious, shovelling complimentary pretzels down his throat like a hungry raccoon.

So it doesn’t count. It’s more like a pre-game to build some momentum for the actual date, if that’s the right word.

They meet up at Woodhaven station, Peter already waiting at the platform, waving excitedly when he spots her coming down the escalator. Less than an hour later, they’re in an old arcade in Manhattan. The interior smells like a strange combination of mildew and bleach, floor covered in what probably was a once-colourful 80’s style carpet with dried soda stains and general nastiness. The blast of cool air when they enter more than offsets it, though, and they buy tokens from the dispenser at the front as the sweat from their foreheads and backs evaporates away.

There’s an old _Space Invaders_ unit—which MJ quickly remembers is a stressful as _fuck_ game as her defense bunkers crumble. 

The barriers fade and she reaches level five, and Peter watches over her shoulder as she maneuvers the joystick to fire at each invader from the bottom row.

“I forgot that the music speeds up as you go,” she mutters. And it is: the four-note loop that sounds like repetitive, low-pitched grunts lends a ridiculous urgency to the game.

She lasts three minutes total. MJ turns back to Peter, who’s grinning like he’s having the time of his life.

Peter, unsurprisingly, is _really_ good at any pretty much every game that involves aiming, so he accumulates a ridiculous number of tickets at the basketball booths. Interestingly, though, MJ murders him at skee-ball; Peter rolls either too forcefully or too light, missing the bullseye rings.

“Woah, mercy,” Peter jokes, pouting as he compares his score with hers, inching closer so that they’re only centimeters apart. The blues and reds and greens that paint his cheek and jaw are the last things she sees before he leans in and her eyes flutter shut.

At their feet, the machine sputters out bright orange tickets.

They kiss for just a second or two and MJ thinks, _I could really get used to this_. 

Later, arms full of ticket strips bunched up sloppily against her chest, she watches Peter contemplate whether give a round on the boxing machine.

“I’m super strong,” he says, “Is it—I don’t know, ethical if I play a strength game?”

“We’re in an arcade, dude. I don’t think it’s that deep.”

Peter concedes at that, slipping his last two tokens into the slot and getting into position. “Fair enough,” he says, and swings.

It doesn’t look like he’s putting much force into it, but the punching bag hits the sensor with a loud thump and ricochets back so quickly that Peter arches back to avoid being punted. Overhead, the booth’s LED sign begins to flicker with a neon red _HIGH SCORE!_

Her boyfriend whoops and places his fingers under his chin, another fist at his hip. He’s grinning, and through a giggle he says, “I’m swole.”

She laughs. “Okay.”

Once their tickets have been fed into the counter, they make their way over to the prize area, lined top to bottom with tacky novelty toys, all BPA, Styrofoam and garish colours. Peter taps the tip of his nose a few times. 

“Dibs out on picking something,” he says. He gestures broadly to the boxes of ugly toys and inflatables pinned to the wall. There’s a bit of everything—a bag of seashells, stress balls, Hot Wheels kits gathering dander on the shelves.

MJ’s a bit partial to the fish-shaped pencil case she skims the inventory, running a finger across the glass before she spots something that makes her stop.

As she calls over the arcade employee across from her and says, “Hi, can I get this one?” Peter shuffles over to peek at her choice.

The employee takes her receipt and deducts the ticket count before handing her the keychain. She dangles it in front of Peter’s face, smiling as his own lips turn up in a grin.

“Oh! It’s so deformed!” he exclaims, looking completely delighted anyway.

The mask is orange and the lens are too triangular – the whole thing is just really sloppily made. If it weren’t for the webbing pattern, MJ would have missed the fact that this sad enamel disaster was supposed to be a Spider-man.

“This is probably your final form,” she says.

“Agreed,” Peter says, reaching over to rub a thumb across the keychain. He grins. “Woah, it’s me,” he adds, “_counterfeit_ me.”

“Fanta-you.”

“It’s so cool that I’m relevant enough to have Walmart versions of myself.”

“Fanta Spider-man _definitely_ doesn’t do your big head justice.” 

There are still enough credits left—her and Peter had spent a lot of tokens, so she exchanges the rest for another keychain—a little green man with a banner that says _I want to believe_. Holding that and the Spider-man keychain, she gestures for him to pick one.

“Ooooh,” Peter says, leaning forward to inspect the two of them. Curiously, he takes out his phone and snaps a picture. “I mean—aliens are totally real and that’s public knowledge at this point—but I still haven’t seen a green bug-eyed one.”

He loops the emerald token around the rest of his keys, and she clips Spider-man to her bag.

“Food?”

“Food.”

__

Peter’s quickly making a reputation for himself as someone who remembers little details. Something about he turned her favourite murder into a romantic gesture and _succeeded_ is… excellent. It’s a little morbid and hence—perfect.

Now, he’s transformed her off-hand comment about espresso, the best things Italians have invented next to _boh_ into a date.

Dork.

Ned frequents this bingsu place with his parents—a white-walled, white-tiled place bathed in fluorescent lighting, each corner sparkling clean — and has raved about how good one of their signatures are: a mountain of shaved ice with a fine layer of cocoa powder, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. On the side, a cup of espresso.

“Ned calls it a deconstructed tiramisu,” Peter says, pouring the coffee over the dish, “but not Italian, I guess.”

MJ gathers a coffee-soaked spoonful with a bit of ice cream and sticks it in her mouth—and yeah. It’s super good. The fact that it’s cold and bringing her internal temperature down from boiling—because _God_ it is hot outside—is just a bonus. When she looks up, Peter is taking a picture of her, and then his fingers start moving in the familiar motion of typing. She squints.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh—uh—gotta give Ned a review, you know,” Peter says, squirming a little. “He wants validation for his choices.”

Sure. That’s why he’s snapping photos.

“Fun fact: people used to think ice cream caused polio because during the summer months because kids kept getting sick. There was like, a witch hunt for ice cream trucks. Frozen milk fat making hapless children resort to the iron lung.” 

At that, Peter sets his phone down and his eyes do the smile-crinkle thing that MJ likes. He laughs, giddy, placing his elbows on the table and putting his head between his hands. “I’m on a date with you and learning polio facts,” he says.

“I sure hope that’s what this is.”

“This is so exciting,” he mumbles, mostly to himself, like where he is and what he’s doing is just hitting him. “You’re so pretty.”

“I want to be incorporeal and vaguely threatening.”

He only smiles bigger at that, and it’s contagious, exceptionally hard to try and not follow along. So, she doesn’t.

“You’d be the _coolest_ formless entity out there,” Peter tells her, giving her finger-guns and a wink before sticking another bite of dessert into his mouth. “No one’s gonna do shapeless and transient like you.”

“Now you get it.” Then, “You’re really pretty too.”

Peter’s head dips to hide his grin, but his ears flush.

__

Summer creeps away gradually—they go on their second date a few days later, and MJ learns that she’d literally rather pick up a cockroach and cuddle it than go webslinging again. Peter clearly loves it, doing goofy things like taking mid-swing selfies, so in-tune with the topography around him that he barely has to pay attention. MJ bets the Coney Island pendulum rides feel like being pushed around in a shopping cart to him—but _she_ has a normal tolerance for vertigo, thank you very much.

She starts volunteering at the Queens’ homeless shelter, which Peter’s aunt is currently spearheading, even coming on evenings where Peter isn’t there, occupied with patrolling or just out of the city to spend time with the Starks.

MJ likes May a lot—her voice is smooth and soothing, offsetting the crests and troughs of Peter’s more jittery energy. She’s incredibly kind; many of Peter’s mannerisms are clearly learned behaviours. After their shifts end, May takes her out for a late dinner, just the two of them, and drives her home.

MJ and Peter see each other in person a few times a week and text for the rest, except for the weeklong gap that connects July to August where Peter is called away for _Spidery business._ The first time they meet up after that, it’s at a group hangout consisting of her and Ned at Peter’s apartment, mindlessly scrolling through Netflix in hopes of finding something interesting enough to watch.

Peter is reclined on one end of the couch. By his fourth yawn, he says, “Sorry, guys. I think I’m still jetlagged as hell.”

(When MJ had asked earlier over video call, he’d motioned vaguely and mentioned something about a human experimentation ring but left it at that. 

“Still an ongoing thing,” he’d said, “So I can’t say much.”)

“Dude, where _were_ you?” Ned says as Peter shifts into a more comfortable position, back leaning against MJ’s side and his legs over Ned’s lap.

“Volgograd.”

“Like, Russia?”

Peter hums, nuzzling into the space under MJ’s arm, dipping off again. “Mm. Yeah. And adjacent areas.”

“That’s so cool.”

“Didn’t get shot, so yeah,” Peter slurs, the words blending together, “mad cool.”

Life is weird.

As Peter’s 17th birthday approaches from ‘round the corner, May texts her the details: the party will just be on the day, at the Parker residence. She asks for MJ’s input of how formal dinner should be—a sit-down around the kitchen thing or a pizza around the living room kind of ordeal. 

The tenth is a drizzly day, asphalt saturated and darkened with the rain that slides off of MJ’s umbrella as she makes the brief walk from the bus stop to the Parker’s building.

[17:29] Hey buzz me in

**Peter** [17:30] wahoo youre here!!

[17:30] no need im coming downstairs <3 <3

As she squeezes into the front corridor and collapses her umbrella, shaking away excess drops of water, a silver minivan slides next to the curb with a faint squeal from its tires.

From the tinted windows of the rear and of the car, the silhouette of a little girl comes into focus, button nose and small hand pressed against the glass. Before the car even slows to a complete stop, she forces the door open, bounding out of the car and breaking into a run to brave the rain.

The two front doors of the minivan open simultaneously. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts step out, the man’s eyes following the girl as he shouts, “Don’t do that until mom gets the keys out!" 

She screeches to a halt right next to where MJ is standing, clad in a rubber duck-yellow rain jacket and bright red boots. Big doe eyes peer up at her, and she sticks out a hand towards her.

“Hi!” the little girl says. “Peter didn’t tell me that you’re this _tall_.”

Peter’s mentioned Morgan, shown MJ a few pictures of her from his camera roll—Morgan holding a worm, Morgan picking cherry tomatoes from the garden, Morgan struggling to mix a thick batter as her mom gives her a helping hand.

Oh, God, she’s cuter in real life.

Tony makes his way over with a box that’s probably Peter’s gift in his hands, his wife right behind him. “Hiya, MJ. Pepper—this is MJ.”

Pepper gives a friendly greeting right as Peter materializes from inside the building and pretty much throws the door open.

He gives MJ a quick peck on the cheek before he directs his attention to Morgan, who’s making _bleugh_ noises at the PDA.

“Oh my _gosh_,” Peter exclaims, making an X shape over his chest with his arms. His mouth opens with pretend, exaggerated shock. “MORGIE.”

With a matching enthusiasm, Morgan hurls herself at him and shouts, “PETEY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

He catches her with ease, breaking into a spin. “Morgie!”

“Petey!” 

“MOOR-gie.”

And they go on, and on, and on.

Next to MJ, Tony pipes up, “Can I file a noise complaint even if I don’t live here?”

His wife whacks him lightly on the shoulder. 

Hoisting Morgan up as she giggles, her arms wrapping around Peter’s neck, the boy grins at the couple. “Hi,” he chirps.

“Hey, dancing queen.”

Peter rolls his eyes good-naturedly and invites them to all come in.

__

Tony Stark—now more than ever, after the blip—is built up as this mythical figure. The media is still unanimously aboard the _Iron Man Love Train_ once his role in undoing the decimation became clear. It’s not a total 180 from how people used to talk about him—but there’s a marked uptick in admiration, idolatry. The wallpaper of the Midtown art room isn’t visible under all the Iron Man pieces.

Once staples to his brief list of conversation topics and pleas for excused absences, Peter doesn’t really mention an internship or Tony Stark anymore. The world can’t seem to shut up about Iron Man, these days, but Peter is largely quiet about it. 

Not bitter, not resentful, or anything in that ballpark. Just quiet, okay with keeping whatever he has close to the chest.

Peter is incandescent as he blows out his candles, purposefully missing a few so Morgan can have a go at it too. May kisses him on the cheek, eliciting a laugh and when she pulls away Tony swoops in to take her place, giving Peter a quick peck on the temple before messing up the boy’s hair.

The sight is downright odd to MJ because she supposes she doesn’t yet know enough to contextualize—and judging by the constant awe radiates from where Ned watches the spectacle, she isn’t the only one. 

Like the burning wax on birthday cake, though, it’s inundated with affection and warmth. Fluffy as the whipped cream spread over the pastry, soft as cotton candy and melt-in-your-mouth sweet.

Peter Parker is incredibly loved, and _that_ is no surprise at all.

__

There’s no sunset tonight, big clouds obscuring the entire landscape. The sky gradually grows darker, while the partygoers polish off their food and mingle around the apartment.

Peter and Ned have disappeared off somewhere to break open their new LEGO set, because they’re still massive nerds when Tony takes the seat on the couch next to her, Morgan in tow.

He slides his hands under Morgan’s armpits and lifts her up so that her head is level with MJ’s. 

“Look at my child,” he says. 

Morgan beams, squirming a bit in her father’s hold. “Miss MJ!”

MJ blinks.

Pepper pops up from behind her and says, “He’s trying to bond.”

Then she’s gone, headed back to the kitchen, making a beeline to the fruit platter abandoned on the counter.

“What she said. Is it working?”

“I don’t… know?” MJ says.

“That’s better than no,” Tony says sagely, sniffing a little.

Morgan finally wriggles free and lands on the carpet with a _thunk_ before squeezing into the gap between MJ and Tony, where the cushions dip.

“Peter’s right,” she says, “you’re super pretty.”

“Thanks, Morgan. You are too.”

Morgan leans in closer to her, prompting MJ to slouch so the girl can whisper closer to her ear. “He says he’s your boyfriend!” she exclaims, like it’s a big secret.

“Morgan was really excited to meet you,” Tony says, “Pete’s been running his mouth for months now and it’s been killing our madam here that she hasn’t been able to meet the mythical crush after hearing so much about her.”

That’s… really sweet. MJ doesn’t know what to say to that.

“By the way—Morgan here still thinks Peter’s cool,” he says, before propping his cheek against his knuckles. “Which is unacceptable. I can’t get through to her, but maybe you can.”

MJ half-expects Peter to burst out of his room and shut things down before this turns into a Peter Parker birthday roast session, but the doorknob doesn’t turn. He’s probably too mesmerised by his and Ned’s in-progress Y-Wing Starfighter, the loser.

She nods and Tony’s goes full Cheshire-cat while Morgan takes it as an invitation to start asking questions.

“Oh! How did you and Peter get together? Did he ask you? He told me he got you a necklace and it broke but you still liked it.”

MJ looks over at Tony. “How much does she know about London?" 

The man frowns. “The heavily abridged version, but she knows a bad guy was involved.”

Okay, then, she’ll gloss over the gorier details. Pulling at the chain wound around her neck, she takes out the pendant tucked under her shirt to show to Morgan. She’d managed to stick some of the shards back together with thin layers of super glue, but the fissures are still apparent. It’s nicer that way, though. “He got me this – it’s a dahlia flower.”

“Why is it black?”

“It’s a reference to the black dahlia murder—a young woman was found dead in a parking lot. They never found the culprit.”

It’s probably not appropriate to say that she was bisected at the waist, so she refrains.

Morgan _oohs_, reaching out to poke at the jewellery. “Did you like it so much that you said yes?”

“Well—he didn’t really ask me,” MJ says, pointing to Happy, who’s mingling with May and Pepper. “Peter used a delivery man because he was too shy.”

Morgan clearly thinks that’s a good answer, and Tony likes it too, because he says, “Hear that, Mo? Petey’s got no _guts_.”

“I have another question!” Morgan says, raising her hand. “How did you two meet?”

“We go to the same school—Midtown,” MJ says, “so we shared classes, but we met before that.”

Tony speaks up this time. “Oh?”

“Peter and I were scheduled for the same entrance exam together.”

“Wow, a romance for the ages.”

It’s been a month and a half, but the word _romance_ still makes her stomach churn with something like exhilaration. “Definitely,” she adds, “and that’s excluding his asthma attack.”

Morgan gasps. “Is that the sickness that makes it hard to breathe?” she asks, the same time Tony says, “_Asthma attack_?”

“Yeah—once upon a time, Peter was even tinier than he is now, the size of a literal amoeba—MJ says, demonstrating by making a minuscule gap between her thumb and index finger. “And his lungs malfunctioned sometimes. I guess the Spider-man thing fixed that too.” 

Father and daughter are both staring at her, curious, on the metaphorical edges of their seats. Verbal storytelling isn’t her usual preference – she likes the feel of ink on paper, soft, crisp pages and serif fonts that put a soft weight in her hands.

“There I was,” MJ begins, looking Morgan dead in the eyes, injecting some extra enthusiasm into her voice, “at Midtown for the first time — they scheduled the entrance exams to be in the late winter—so it was still really cold outside, and the pathetic furnaces at school were spitting out more filth than warm air. I don’t know if either of you are aware, but Midtown is old; it’s dusty. Literally dead skin everywhere—all sorts of tiny particles. I bet if you ran your hand across the top shelf of any surface, you’d come away with enough fluff to stuff a pillow.”

“Ew,” Morgan says.

“Ew,” she echoes. “Because he had asthma, Peter didn’t take too well to it—not to mention that he was probably a little stressed about the test that would decide his future for the next four years. About a quarter way through, he starts coughing and turns all pink.”

“How pink,” Tony asks. 

“Like Hubba Bubba gum. Pepto-Bismol.”

“Oh,” he says, haltingly, “my God.”

Her phone buzzes in her pocket.

**Peter** [20:17] i can hear u slandering me!! super ears!

[20:18] did u call me an AMOEBA

[20:18] i was 5’1” u Giant

She ignores it.

“So he pretty much started choking, but didn’t even immediately go for his inhaler because he probably forgot it in his backpack and was too nervous about being accused to cheating. I was there, watching him wheeze and sweat. One of my cousins has asthma too—so I caught on pretty quickly, I guess. I ended up holding the inhaler to his face because he got too weak and his hands were shaking too bad to press down on the canister.”

Silence.

“The end.”

Morgan claps, “You saved Petey!”

“That’s—” Tony says, “… so good.”

__

“I cannot believe you told them that. The betrayal,” Peter pouts, after all the guests are gone; she’s staying the night. They’re both at the sink, doing the dishes at 11 p.m. MJ dries while Peter scrubs icing and grease off plates and cutlery.

MJ shrugs. “I’m an honest person,” she says, “it’s not like it didn’t happen.”

“Well, what _I_ would have said is,” he starts, pausing for dramatic effect, “is that you took my breath away.”

The hand holding the dishrag stops. MJ stares at Peter, who’s too busy appreciating his own pun. “Shut up.”

Peter sticks his tongue out. 

When they’re done cleaning up and May tells them there’s no last-minute chores, Peter pulls her into a warm hug, buries his face in her neck, but doesn’t do much else.

“Do you like them?” he asks.

“Yeah—they’re, uh, neat. You’re right—Morgan _is_ cute as _fuck_.”

“That’s awesome. I’m really happy you guys like each other.”

Peter moves robotically to his bed—it’s twin-sized and fully stretched out, MJ’s head pokes the headboard until her toes extend to the other end of the bedframe. On her side, she curls inwards, chin resting against Peter’s hair, lanky arm against his chest. He’s laid out on his back, eyes already closed.

At 12:02 a.m., MJ says, “Happy birthday.”

“Yay, happy birthday to me,” Peter hums, drowsy.

__

MJ’s not good at getting close to people.

As a kid, her parents spent every second doting on her brother—who excelled at everything he did—friends, school, soccer. They wanted her to be the same, but she was just a touch too awkward, a touch too introverted, preferring to tuck herself away with a story.

Granted—they tried, every now and then, but her brother was just so _easy_—always chipper, always motivated. An everyone wants to go to his birthday party type of kid. Her mom drove MJ to art classes, where she sketched quietly, away from other people, and would give her nudges on the shoulder to say hi to classmates on the first day of school.

She liked being alone—but sometimes she thinks mom and dad took the _MJ likes space _thing too far, because by the time she was wrapping up middle school dinnertime chats just consisted of Andrew this, Andrew that—_Andrew’s team made it to finals, I’m sure he’ll be captain by senior year. Andrew got into Duke! MJ, sweetheart, isn’t that wonderful_?

Her brother’s not a bad guy, and her parents hadn’t been either, but MJ grew up feeling like an outsider.

Andrew cries like a baby the first time he sees her again, finding her in the chaos of New York after the blip. They hug for maybe the first time without the pressure of mom and dad’s pestering, and the bitterness begins to ebb away, bit by bit, like old paint, old pains.

From the get-go, Peter and May always put in the effort to pull her into the folds—if she falters, they back off and try again later. She learns that her boyfriend hates all things peppermint and that’s his least favourite part about winter, while his favourite part is that his aunt and uncle used to take him skating. Rinks are chilly, but they’re polished and dust-free; perfect exercise for a little asthmatic boy. She learns that May is a two-in-one: Peter’s mother-figure and one of his best friends. Back in 2010, his Uncle Ben took him to Stark Expo and he got a silly plastic Iron Man mask there before nearly being blown up.

“I feel like that really set the tone for the rest of your life,” MJ says. 

“Did it _ever_.”

He wants to know everything about her—her favourite childhood snacks, the shows she hates, if she’s team milk first or cereal, what keeps her up at night. Senior year, there’s a block Peter has free while she’s in biology, and when she comes out of class, he offers her a cup of coffee and a pastry because she tends to skip breakfast.

Ironically, he also encourages her to sleep more.

It’s really, really good. She comes over to his apartment to study in the dining room and they proofread each other’s stuff for their respective common apps. By September, she finds herself absentmindedly sharing facts about Peter and their dates to her brother, on the rare days that they’re both free and giving the whole Sibling Bonding thing a go.

Better late than never, they both agree.

Sometimes it hits her that he’s Spider-man—it’s a fact, it’s something that she knows, but there are moments where the truth really sinks in and her chest churns a little. It happens when Peter comes to school with a concussion that he swears is gone by the next day. Or when he’s pulling stitches out in his kitchen like it’s routine.

“Do you need to get that checked before you take them out?”

Peter aligns the surgical scissors with the stitches looping through the flesh of his calf. Next to him is a pot of boiled water, where a pair of tweezers still sit. “Nah,” he says, “May taught me the proper way to do it.”

Yesterday, the cut was an ugly gash down his leg and today, it’s nearly gone save for a line of slightly puckered skin and the tiny puncture sites where the sutures had gone in.

Peter catches her staring and smiles. “Hey, don’t worry about it, seriously. I heal fast.”

__

In February, prom is just a month away and Peter is vibrating with excitement about it, eager to offset _certain_ past disaster dances with a good memory, for once.

First semester’s finals had been held in January, so there’s a temporary lull in workload—even some professional development days for school staff that currently leaves MJ and Peter in the middle of a long weekend.

The last school day of the week is a Thursday, and she and Peter catch a movie with Ned before they all hang out at Ned’s house, playing Mario-Kart.

“Ned,” Peter says, “you blue-shell me one more time and I will _never_ speak to you again.”

Ned makes a L-sign with his hand and props it up on his forehead.

The four-day long-weekend coincides with both Tony and Pepper being swamped to their necks in SI paperwork, so Peter and May offer to have Morgan stay over in New York while they regather their bearings. Happy drops Morgan off in Queens Friday afternoon.

The girl convinces Peter to drag MJ out for some ice cream even though it’s _February_ and still chilly outside, though her boyfriend seems to regret the decision when Morgan orders three entire scoops of mint chip.

__

Saturday starts off okay.

They’re out as a trio again, Peter and MJ sandwiching Morgan as they walk around. Tony’s a bit too paranoid to parade Morgan around in one of the most populated places in the country where people can put two-and-two together and realize that the little girl he’s holding hands with is his daughter.

Peter isn’t a familiar face to the public, so they see no issue in letting him take Morgan out for a walk around the city to explore. It’s kind of sunny and not bitingly cold, so Peter piggybacks Morgan out of 86th Street Station and into Central Park while MJ tails them.

They walk through the Great Lawn and pass the MoMA.

It’s around when they reach Upper East Side that Peter suddenly stops walking and gingerly kneels down, patting Morgan a few times to get her off his shoulders.

“Peter?” MJ asks. 

Confused, Morgan holds on to Peter’s pant leg while he stares off sea of buildings, still, chest rising and falling slowly.

He closes his eyes, and when they open again, he draws a quick pattern onto the face of his watch and connects his wrists together. It disassembles and flows like liquid mercury, morphing into his webshooters.

Gently, he looks down at Morgan and pushes her towards MJ.

“Something’s wrong—I gotta go,” he tells them. “Momo, go with MJ, okay? Stick with her at all times.”

He fishes out his phone and hands it to MJ.

“Your fingerprint is registered—call Fury or Hill, call Tony—I think it’s bad. Whatever’s happening—it’s bad.” 

Hastily, he kisses both of them on the forehead and pulls them into a hug.

“Start running—stay out of sight, blend in—I—I don’t know. Please stay safe.”

Just as Peter sprints away, presumably to get his suit on, a loud explosion reverberates through the entire city.

For a moment, it’s unclear where it came from. Then smoke, dark and ashy, begins to billow out from a maroon-brick building.

A widespread hush blankets the streets, everyone around them stopping in their tracks. Cars, pedestrians, buses. 

Seconds go by and the frenzy begins, people yelling, running for cover, whipping out their phones to record. Cracks begin to run through the now-burning building, at least twenty-five stories tall, climbing their way up like blood flowing back to the heart.

With the next beat, it crumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... yeah 
> 
> anyway i'm gifting this fic to the lovely ciaconnaa who has just been such a positive force since i've started posting on ao3. when i made this account back in august i was very tentative about writing my own stories and it's support like hers that get authors on their feet : ) she also seems to like datecutes soooooo i think this counts?? i think? 
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr, i'm mindshelter there also!!


	2. sit-and-wait predation

_MJ doesn’t know Peter all too well—not yet. _

_That’s fair: they’ve been together for months, knowing each other beforehand as classmates under the careful denomination of friends. It’s a first relationship for the both of them, at that. It’s giddy grins and overthinking each date, fumbling, curious hands that roam and stop and start again with no discernible rhythm, spaced out by _Is this okay_s. Backing up. Gauging. Not quite knowing what each cue means, but slowly, steadily getting there. _

_MJ’s met the little boy placed around the Parker household. He lives in laminated photos with glowing yellow timestamps that read 2006, 2007, and so on. She’s met the one frozen in cheap dollar store picture frames, about twelve-years-old, waifish but joyful under his baggy hoodies—but she's never known him. He's smiling at the camera with Ben and May flanking him at either side. She takes the pieces of information May or Peter himself offer up about his childhood and carefully files it away, and sometimes she lies in bed, sleepless, wondering how much to offer in return. _

_Does it need to be deliberate, or will it come when it comes, as easy and natural as inhaling in one breath and exhaling the next? _

_MJ learns Ben was usually the one to pick Peter up from school because May would be preoccupied with clinicals that kept her working long hours in Hempstead or Bronx county. He’d swing Peter up by his arms and prop the boy up on his back whenever they walked that final stretch home. On Fridays, they’d make a stop at Dairy Queen for soft serve cones. Peter still likes his with the crunchy chocolate shell, and he says he never really orders anything else. _

_Ben was the first person to introduce Peter to machines—his late uncle had a hobby of repairing old watches, which translated into a lifelong love for tech and science in his nephew. _

_(Ben's also responsible for Star Wars. Comics. Dungeons and Dragons.) _

_Richard Parker Sr. used to run an antique shop in Brooklyn, years and years ago, and Ben’s weekend entertainment would be watching Peter’s grandfather tinker._

_She knows that Ben died at around half-past one in the morning. By abdominal hemorrhage—not because anyone told her, but because it had made its way on the local news, circulated in rumours around the school, whispered speculations between the gaps that web articles left, always falling into a loud hush whenever classmates saw Peter approach. _

_MJ knows the Peter that came after: the one whose height had gone from dismally lacking to average far too quickly to be normal, nerdy, goody-two-shoes 4.0 student to… nerdy, flaky 4.0 student. _

_She also knows the Peter that exists now best—he’s her boyfriend, and so strangely comfortable in his own skin and ill at ease all at once, settling into his quiet nook of Midtown’s social hierarchy with little fuss. Subtle, emerging confidence that had formerly only been visible in brief spurts._

_Spider-man, she thinks, is something she still understands at a shallower level—of course anyone who keeps an eye on Peter for more than ten minutes will catch on to his innate need to do good. It’s admirable, really, how deep his drive to be kind runs, fused to his marrow. _

_Peter Parker, to the untrained eye, is not magnetic. Given his protective streak over his identity, he prefers it that way. _

_Ironically, MJ feels a pull so strong it surprises her a little. He’s striking._

_Yeah—as ridiculous as the premise is—Peter’s got a spider-themed superhero thing going on, complete with a skin-tight suit that, for all that it looks like fancy spandex, is mind-bogglingly advanced, and he’s making it work. _

_He’s sobering to watch. _

_One evening they’re sitting in the kitchen, an offensively large first-aid kit between them. There are gauze pads, roller bandages, cold packs – even a goddamn CAT tourniquet, which thankfully looks unused, buried under layers of other supplies. _

_“So apparently if governments essentially fall apart for five years that gives an ample window of time to bolster your collection of illegal alien weapons,” Peter mutters, squirting some saline solution onto a cotton ball, “and then rob a bank—which, awesome, very creative—to make Spider-man’s day a little harder. Jeez.”_

_Peter unlocks his phone with his other hand and swipes open his front camera to use as a mirror to dab at the scratches and cuts on his face._

_“I can help,” MJ offers, already bringing a hand halfway forward and dragging her chair so she’s right next to him. _

_Peter blinks, once, before he says, “Okey dokey.” He leans forward, tilting his head up a bit. There’s a red-pink scratch along his cheekbone, another on the chin, and a third, deeper wound on the other side of his jaw, which is practically closed and handling itself just fine, now. “Thank you.”_

_Dabbing lightly, the cotton comes away with some blood and this close up MJ can see Peter suppress a wince, the flesh of his cheeks tensing just so. She feels a hand brushing at the arm she isn’t using, up and down, just the mildest of pressures. _

_“I guess using alien guns for a bank of all places is pretty low-brow, huh?” _

_Peter sighs in exasperation and, like the drama queen he is, rolls his eyes. “Thank you, that’s what I’ve been thinking—like, step it up? Criminal game weak as fuuuck. Like, go cause an international incident or something?” _

_MJ finishes cleaning the roughed-up spots on his face and stops to inspect her work, standing over him, while Peter smiles up at her. _

_“Dear diary,” Peter says, and the way he looks at her makes her entire body go warm, “today MJ saved me from certain death by sepsis.”_

_“The flesh-eating disease almost got ya.” _

_Spider-man isn’t something she fully understands—and maybe no one does, not completely, aside from Peter himself. MJ sees everything from an aggressive, consuming need to care, to guilt, to unspent love. _

__

The burn of exercise, beginning from the roof of her mouth, spreads into her lungs as MJ sprints away from the billowing dust cloud behind her, southbound by foot. She’s silently grateful that Morgan, whose arms and legs are locked firmly around MJ’s collar and waist, is still small and easy to carry—only five-years-old and forty pounds. The streets are an unfortunate combination of dirty slush, half-melted snow that’s turned gray, wet and filthy from traffic and city grime.

Morgan burrows her face into MJ’s hair and that—more than the collapse of a literal building is what makes MJ’s body purr with anxiety. 

She has to get Morgan out of here—priority one. 

There’s a good rule of thumb to follow in light of a dangerous situation—in any scenario that warrants panicking, avoid panicking. While easier said than done, of course, it’s the best MJ has in terms of any sort of plan. 

Her thumb, unstable as she runs, presses against Peter’s home button and unlocks his phone. It’s a bit of a challenge, scrolling through his contacts list while swerving around people, careful not to crash into someone. 

Near Bloomingdale’s, an older man slips against wet snow and directly onto the ground. MJ skids to a stop, Morgan still latched on firmly, and crouches to help him up among the chaos of other people running, pouring into the train stations and down the street. 

Right as they both get on their feet, a second explosion goes off blocks ahead, far away enough to be safe but oh so loud. Morgan flinches harshly and says MJ’s name like a plea.

“Just hold on tight, okay, Morgan?” MJ says. “I got you.”

The boom, an angry, ear-piercing noise, had rung out from the direction MJ had been running in.

_Not good, not good_, MJ thinks, a little hysterically.

Other people must be thinking the same thing, because in the periphery of her vision she sees cars screech to a stop, drivers leaving their vehicles in favour of the train station just at the corner of the block. Underground, where it might be safer from falling concrete, the force of a bomb. MJ considers her options for a moment—just a moment, because the urgency of what’s happening right know is not kind on time.

The amount of people digging, fighting their way on the platforms, the trains likely oversaturated or well on their way to be a nightmare to board. She and Morgan could well end up standing outside, like clay pigeons, waiting to get past the validation gates as another hit takes place. Running aimlessly is not much better.

Queensboro bridge is just five blocks East, a straight line. 

MJ takes a deep breath and jogs over to the first car she sees sitting abandoned on the middle of the road, door still ajar.

The keys are still there. 

_Okay. This was happening._

“Morgan,” she says, “sit at the back, okay? I’m gonna get us out of here.”

Morgan does as she’s told—dropping off of MJ’s shoulders almost immediately even though she had been shaking against the teenager’s back for the past few minutes and heads straight to the backseat. The little girl is breathing hard, just as out of breath as MJ feels.

Smart, brave girl. Morgan is getting a gazillion hugs when this is all over. MJ looks back at Morgan for just a second and takes in her brown hair, eyes shiny from unshed tears. 

MJ shoves herself into the driver’s seat. When she’s nervous, anxious, her hands tend to start shaking as they are now. The keys clink and jangle together as she fires up the ignition.

From the rear window she even sees Morgan do up her seatbelt with a brief click. “MJ,” she says, voice shaking, “can we go get Peter before we go?”

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Mr. Harrington muttering _I’m not qualified _rings through her brain. “Sorry—Peter’s busy helping out, keeping people safe—but he’s tough, okay? He’ll be okay. Our job is to get outta here.”

With a foot on the accelerator, MJ drives onto the curb to get past other stopped cars on the road, driving away half on the sidewalk.

“Because he’s Spider-man?” 

“Yeah,” MJ replies as cheerfully as she can, maneuvering her way around the mess that’s Manhattan. She’s eternally grateful she got her licence on the first try—apparently with flying colours. “Because he’s Spider-man.” 

A bit further down, the traffic clears. MJ ups the pressure on the gas pedal and the wheels turn faster and faster.

__

Speeding towards Queens, well past the legal limit, MJ suddenly remembers she has Peter’s phone and unlocks it, passing it to Morgan. “Call your dad,” she says, eyes still dead on the road, the view of the water as they zoom past bridge guardrails. “Oh—and—put it on speaker, please?”

Morgan gives MJ a shaky okay and dials Tony’s number manually. Her parents must have made sure she knew both of their numbers by heart. The ringback tone fills the car against the hum of the engine. 

“Hello?”

“Dad!” Morgan shouts.

“Morgan—is that you?” Tony asks. “Why do you have Pete's phone?”

“Someone’s attacking Manhattan—at least two explosions,” MJ pipes in, speaking loudly to make sure he can hear. Before Tony can freak out, she adds, “We’re both fine — Peter left to take care of it and I’m getting Morgan out of here.” 

“Oh—” MJ hears Tony ask FRIDAY to pull up satellite footage before hearing him suck in a large breath, muttering shit so quietly MJ can barely pick up on it. “Oh God. Where are you two? I’ll come as quickly as I can—” 

Morgan interjects. “MJ’s driving us away, dad—she says she’s taking us somewhere safe.”

“Yeah—to Queens—is that okay? I’m assuming that they’re just targeting Manhattan.”

Tony lets out a deep breath and even through the fuzz of a call his relief is palpable. “Yes—yes, that sounds fine—are you headed back to your apartment complex? Wait—you don’t have a car; whose car are you in—”

MJ answers, “We’ll stick with Forest Hills station,” right as Morgan says, “MJ stole a car.”

“What?”

They’re off the bridge and a short distance to Queensboro plaza now. “They left it there! It was the fastest way out!”

“Well—” Tony starts. “Sure. Morgan, are you sure you’re okay?”

Morgan is decidedly not perfectly fine, as far as MJ is concerned. She’d been on the verge of tears—and still is, for good reason.

The light turns red and MJ slows to a stop. Her palms are sweating like hell. She’s just noticing that now, fingers and back damp despite the winter chill. 

“Um—yeah, I’m okay,” Morgan says. It’s only a little wobbly. “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart—and I’ll be there as fast as I can, okay?” Tony says, so gentle and soft and nothing like the man who can dial up perfunctory arrogance as easily as slipping into well-worn shoes. “MJ—thank you. You made a good call.”

MJ took someone’s car, but she supposes survival surpasses being polite. Unethical life pro tip: for a quick escape, borrow another’s property. Tony Stark endorsed. “Yup.”

The light turns green again and she gets the car rolling once more once she reaches back towards where Morgan is sitting and gestures for the girl to pass the cellphone over. There’s shuffling on the other end of the line and the distinct sound of machinery powering up.

“I’ll be there ASAP,” Tony says, “FRIDAY, autopilot to Forest Hills station—”

MJ thinks she hears ringing.

“What was that?” she asks. “Tony?” 

“Peter’s calling—God, okay, I’ll just add him to this call.”

The call takes a few moments to connect before Peter, voice blessedly unsaturated from any signs of pain, greets with a chipper, “Hey Tony!” 

“Kid,” Tony says, right as Morgan shouts, “Petey!”

“Woah—Morgan? Are you and MJ already with Tony—holy shit are you already out of Trenton are you some sort of superhero—oh, right, are you guys all okay?”

“I am literally Iron Man,” Tony says. “And no, I’m ten minutes away by jet—MJ’s made it back to Queens?”

“Yeah,” MJ says, switching lanes to pass a few cars. Queens Boulevard, straight to the destination. Easy. “Almost there.”

“Awesome, great—okay—Tony, I’ve sent a few pictures, and can you do me a quick favour and get in touch with the NYPD, tell them where to bring their bomb squad.” A pause. “Wow, I’m stressed.”

That doesn’t sound good.

“What—” From another side of the call MJ hears a ping, probably a notification. Tony cusses. “I’m on my way.”

“No,” Peter says, a few notches more serious than before. “You can still help me on the way to getting _Morgan_ and getting her out of New York.”

“You are literally—”

“You know I’m right, Tony.”

Tony says nothing for several beats.

Then, quietly, “Fine. Peter’s staying on the call—MJ, I trust you can get where you need to go.”

“Yeah.”

Whatever issue Peter and Tony need to address right now probably isn’t kid friendly. Morgan-friendly. Nothing about today was Morgan-friendly. 

The line cuts, and the screen of Peter’s phone goes dark.

MJ breathes in, breathes out. Just a little longer until the next exit.

__

Subtlety was never Tony Stark’s thing—even as he retreats further into the peace of domesticity, largely hidden from public eye, that’s all out the window if anyone he cares about is involved.

The wind of the jet’s propellers twirls the locks of hair MJ hadn’t tied back, holding up her forearms against her face to prevent debris from flying into her eyes. She watches as the plane makes a hasty landing onto the biggest open space available, right by the train station entrance.

MJ gets out of the car and goes to get Morgan, who’s way ahead of her; she’s already gotten her seatbelt off and is running towards the jet.

The collapsible staircase drops onto the ground as Tony sprints out, looking completely out of breath. 

Morgan practically hurls herself at her father, who kneels and catches her with practiced ease. He stands back up, holding her with his flesh arm supporting her legs and the other across her back. “Oh, thank _God_,” he says, voice shaking. “Hi, baby. I’m so happy you’re okay, thank God.”

Morgan, who’s been doing her best to stay composed, starts to hiccup.

Tony hurries them back inside. There, he sits down on one of the faux-leather cushions and the stairs retract on their own and the whir of the propellers resumes. He settles his head on Morgan’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, bug,” he mutters, soft and low. He threads his fingers through Morgan’s hair, hands shaking. Not the prosthetic—his flesh arm, vibrating, its tendons strained as if trying to keep itself still.

He looks over to MJ for the first time since they’ve boarded, still swaying his daughter back and forth. “Thank you,” he says, completely sincere.

It makes MJ feel strange—she doesn’t feel like she’s done much at all. And by the purse of Tony’s lips, the clear dejection—he feels rather similarly.

“Tony,” she says, “What's happening back there?”

Tony sighs and his frown deepens any further. He digs out a tablet and a pair of earbuds, handing them to her while shifting Morgan around in his arms.

“Here—Peter forwarded this footage earlier—you can watch while I make sure little miss is going to be okay.”

__

MJ quickly recognizes the video feed as the Spider-man suit’s HUD footage: the lower icons of the screen displaying suit stats, optics, radar, an interactive map, all gleaming a bright pale blue, like ice. They contrast sharply with the scene ahead, the grays and whites of an urban winter. Blue rings spin and flicker as the interface comes fully online, tracking his eye movements, while Peter swings towards the site of the explosion.

Near the pilot’s seat, Tony is trying to coax the spout of a water bottle into Morgan’s mouth. 

“_Hello, Peter_,” Karen says, pleasant over her user’s harsher breaths against the winter chill. 

The cloud of smog draws closer, Peter clinging to a building right across from the brick structure that had gone down. “_Hey Karen, back me up here—that was definitely a thermobaric, right? The blast from that was crazy_.”

“_Indeed. It appears that it wasn’t quite large; the explosive range was limited to a single building only_.”

“_Well damn_,” Peter replies. “_This might be a long shot, but do you think you can pick up on any heat signatures inside—people might be trapped under the rubble_—” 

“_While I cannot distinguish any human heat signatures over the high temperature_,” Karen says, making Peter suck in a breath and swear quietly, “_with a brief search of the property it appears that this tower has not been occupied since 2019. It is a former office building that was shut down after the decimation and is still under talks to be repurposed_.”

Why would someone bomb an empty building?

Peter must be thinking the same thing, because he says, even through his tangible relief, “_What? Why would someone bomb an empty_—”

He cuts himself off mid-sentence, and MJ imagines him abruptly tensing the way he does whenever he senses something everyone around him has yet to pick up, teeth gritting under his mask and the muscles on his back tightening just a fraction.

“_Karen, reduce audio input to 25%, now_!” he shouts, right as another building blows, three blocks down—this one a slate gray with narrow windows. Even high up, the people below small like ants, all scrambling away to safety, MJ sees them all flinch sharply at the noise. Even with the volume down, it’s a sizeable growl.

The shock front shatters the windows of adjacent buildings, and glass shards rain down. Thankfully, the bomb must have been placed on a high floor—if it was closer to the ground, there’d have been broken bones and ruptured organs to deal with.

Peter grunts with discomfort, as he swings over to the site of the second explosion, making it in time to catch a large chunk of stone that had just begun its eight-storey fall. It buys the people below just enough time to start their cars or run away, lengthening the web gradually to settle it on the ground so that it doesn’t end up as a massive pendulum and smash into another building.

“_Please tell me that building was empty too_.”

The HUD hums for a minute while accessing servers. Then, Karen says, “_Vacated since 2020. There should have been no one inside._” 

MJ squints at the screen.

Small range, bombs placed out of the way to wreak destruction—but not to take lives.

Get attention, maybe. 

Spider-man’s attention, given that this is right in the vigilante’s home turf.

“_That’s nice—but what the hell, honestly_,” Peter says, butting the side of his head with his hand a few times. “_Fuck. That was not good on my ears_.” 

Then he’s off again, circling around the building to fortify the lower floors with webbing so that it won’t give out abruptly like building number one—or if it does, it’s better contained in what is essentially a very strong, big net. The higher levels, however, are unsalvageable.

Peter swings around twice before settling back onto the ground, and the icon that tracks where he’s looking disappears. He must have his eyes closed. 

When they open again, the HUD focuses on another tower, another two blocks East.

“_Karen_,” Peter says, “_That tower, over there. Is it abandoned_?”

“_It appears so_.”

“_Bingo_,” Peter says, already breaking into a sprint and raising his right wrist in the usual motions of webshooting. “_There’s gotta be more of these things planted around. I can feel it_.”

“_Peter, if the bombs are FAEs like you suspect_,” Karen warns, “_I would advise against getting too close—the suit will not provide adequate protection against the fuel cloud should it disperse, as it is_—”

“_Highly toxic, yes_,” Peter finishes. “_Which is why we’ll just have to get there before that happens, don’t you think_?”

This is an old recording—Peter makes it out of this, despite his video-self currently pulling a literal life-threatening move, but it makes MJ wince anyway. Her hands tighten around the tablet and her fingers twitch, but she forces herself to keep watching. Tony hadn’t been freaking out with worry after this recording had taken place—Peter must still, in a relative sense of the term, be fine. 

“_Judging from the blast size the time duration between the two explosive charges will be too short for you to escape_.”

“_Well—who else is around to do it?_” Peter inquires, and it’s a rhetorical question. It’s just him—and if he has a hunch that there’s a third bomb, or a fourth—what’s proving that the next one isn’t in an abandoned building, closer where people might get caught? What if it’s a race against time, and the longer Peter dawdles the higher the chances of lethal consequences?

So, in the end, it’s an easy choice to make, especially for Peter. 

She looks back over to where Tony and Morgan are seated, the man smiling down at his daughter as he wipes at her face. Morgan reaches out, short fingers brushing against the scar tissue of Tony’s face. 

Tony catches her looking an raises an eyebrow, silently asking if she’s finished watching.

MJ presses play again and jumps ahead, too impatient to watch Peter make his way up to the top floor of building three.

The next scene looks like another empty office building, complete with faded green carpet and cubicles coated in layers of grime, what must have formerly been sleek white panels now decrepit with mold, peeling at the corners.

Peter is padding around the room, muttering to himself. “_They must be detonated remotely, somehow—or they’re timed,_” he says, “_Something that releases pressurized gas and then ignites it._”

He stops in his stride when he spots a smooth cylinder, sitting innocently smack in the middle of the space. It doesn’t look like a bomb—almost like a metal mailing tube. It’s got a paper note taped to it. 

Peter detaches the note and flips it over.

It’s a map of Manhattan—dotted with red across the entire borough, each with a timestamp.

_HAVE FUN!_ it says.

MJ’s stomach _lurches_.

There’s two fat, black X marks blotted over East Village, both bearing the same addresses as the structures that have already gone down, and _dozens_ more, scattered South, West, North. In finer, smaller print, the addresses, down to which floor each explosive is idling, waiting.

MJ pauses the video to get a good look at the map.

None of the bombs are set to go off concurrently; it seems that each one, save for the first two, will detonate ten minutes apart. 

_What the ever-loving fuck_, MJ mouths, pressing play again. 

“_Shit,” Peter says. _

He starts feeling around the bomb in front of him, carefully.

_“It’d be nice if there was someone that could fly up and get them quickly_,” Peter mutters. “_Say, Sam and Bucky don’t happen to be in town, do they?_” 

“_Unfortunately, no_,” Karen replies.

“_Where are they?_”

“_Las Vegas_.”

“_I’m sorry?_”

“_They’re in Las Vegas, Peter_.”

“_Oh_,” Peter hisses, “_So they can drag my ass to present-day Stalingrad during my summer vacation but when I could use a little help, they’re probably getting drunk married by Elvis_—”

“_I believe they are there on a mission, Peter_,” Karen reassures him.

Peter grumbles. He unhinges a hatch, uncovering a small timer surrounded by an entire network of wires, dense like vines in a forest. It makes up a garish nexus of bright colours.

The timer reads 5:38, then 5:37.

5:36.

He thumbs at the various plugins, tapping idly at a gray wire. “_If I just seal the gas compartment so it doesn’t react with air—you think we can stop the explosion?_”

“_It is still probably best if you disable it altogether_.”

“_Definitely_,” Peter says. With a resigned sigh, he adds, “_Call Tony_.”

__

When MJ finishes the video and closes the application, Tony tells her they’ll be landing at the Avengers compound soon. Morgan is idling by herself in one of the seats, watching the two of them intently as Tony leans against the frame of the jet next to MJ, strain evident along the line of his body.

Loose fist in front of his mouth, the other in wrapping around his own abdomen, Tony says, “I’ve been meaning to ask—how are you holding up?

MJ shrugs. “So-so,” she says. 

“Three more minutes, boss,” FRIDAY chimes. 

Briefly, MJ tunes into the thrum of the plane, how the whole machine rumbles just so.

“Pete stole a car, a few years ago—did he tell you that?” At MJ’s shake of the head, he adds, “Fair enough. Still don’t think he likes talking about homecoming much.” Tony laughs to himself. “Though you did a much better job than him with the driving.”

“Hmm,” MJ replies. “Are you headed back to New York?”

Tony exhales. “I am. Maybe,” he admits, before his voice drops a handful of decibels to keep Morgan out of earshot, “it’s an asshole move to drop my daughter off and leave her right after the hell of a day she’s been through, but—the compound is the most secure place there is.”

It’s not ideal to be leaving his daughter at the moment—but MJ knows that Peter is Iron Man’s kid as much as Morgan Stark is. “Wasn’t trying to imply that,” she says, raising a brow. “From what I saw, it doesn’t seem to be a one-person job.”

He nods. “We counted forty explosives,” Tony supplies, “with detonation times scattered at different sides of the city. Peter knows how to deactivate them now, and the bomb squad is collecting the ones set to go off last, but the kid still has to zigzag across the city. Trying not to cut corners here.” 

“You’d be good help,” MJ says, sort of wry. “If anyone’s got knowledge on bombs, it’d be you, yeah?”

Tony visibly tries not to wince but offers up a self-deprecating snort. “Oh, absolutely.”

Even if the rest of the world forgets what kind of man Tony Stark used to be, too lost in the light of the better person he was now, it seems that Tony himself cannot. Refuses to forget, perhaps. He’s decided to sit at the same table as his misdeeds and make something better out of it. 

Peter talks about May and Tony like she hung the moon and he strung the stars, and MJ thinks she gets the rationale for the both of them.

“Look out for him,” she tells Tony.

“That’s the plan.”

__

Tony doesn’t bolt the second they touch down upstate, but he definitely wants to, running down the steps of the jet with Morgan still in his arms, on autopilot to where the nano bots he had retired from use still sit.

Nearly down the beeline, he seems to realize what he’s doing and looks down at the child in his arms. MJ makes the jog over to where he’s standing and holds out her arms, giving him a meaningful glance.

Tony looks at her tensely, with a mix of gratitude and disgruntlement, and back at his daughter. “I’m sorry, love,” he says. “Mom’s on her way, okay? And MJ is great company, or so I’ve heard.”

Then he passes her to MJ and calls out to FRIDAY to deploy a suit.

__

The next little while is a blur. FRIDAY guides her and Morgan to a specific wing of the compound that looks like a residential area. MJ coaxes Morgan out of her jacket and brings the girl into her arms, slowly enough that Morgan can push her away.

Morgan burrows her face into MJ’s chest, and MJ draws delicate circles on her small back in attempt to impart some comfort.

“Crazy afternoon, huh?”

A nod, a sniff. 

MJ leans in so that she can whisper in Morgan’s ear. “He’s Spider-man, remember?” she says. “Even when he gets his butt kicked the bad guys get their butts kicked even harder. I’ve seen it.”

Morgan doesn’t look up, burrowing further into MJ’s jacket. “The last time dad went out to do important hero things he lost his arm.”

Christ on a cracker.

“Peter’s gone out plenty of times after that, right, Morgan?” 

“Yeah. I see it on the news sometimes.”

“Right. And he does get knocked around, but he always gets up, okay? You can be sure of it.”

Pepper arrives to the area MJ and Morgan are situated not long after, looking windswept and slightly wild until the tension in the older woman’s body unravels upon seeing her daughter. May and Happy make it about half an hour later. MJ doesn’t speak much, anxiety coiling around her guts, sluggish and baleful.

She toys with the two phones in her hands—her own, which has several missed calls and unanswered texts from a worried brother, which she hastily responds to, promising to call later—and Peter’s. Because he’s a sap, his wallpaper is a picture of MJ and himself at some school event with the Midtown photography club watermark pasted onto the corner of the image. Picture-Peter is laughing at something MJ said, head thrown back in delight, and they’re both swathed in the glow of the sun as they work their way through potato chips and mediocre hotdogs. Only one side of picture-MJ’s face is visible, expression deadpan as she watches Peter’s hysterics.

Her gut is weighed down and there’s still this unnatural sensation against her chest. May had immediately peppered MJ with questions, asking if she was okay before heading to the kitchen to get MJ something to drink. 

Having no other choices besides sitting and waiting gives rise to such a cloying, awful feeling. Like May, it leaves MJ antsy.

On the news, reporting is still in progress. Happy stands off on the side, moving here and there with nervous energy while Aunt May and MJ are sitting in front of a television. She smiles the same smile Peter does, and the hug that they share as they can do nothing but dawdle helps MJ feel a few shades lighter.

Pepper’s taken Morgan out of the room, concerned that watching the situation unfold will only make her more anxious.

It’s been nearly two hours since this whole mess has started. Spider-man and Iron Man are reported to still parsing through buildings on their Easter egg hunt, neutralizing each threat. The bomb squad is putting in their best, too, collecting the explosives and submerging them large vats of water—no air for an oxygen-dependent explosive, no problems.

It’s been going on for quite some time, now—Peter alternating from one end of city to another with little time to stop. Even with a stamina like his, it must be tiring. Tony’s mobility is via his suit—but flight requires some decent control of the body, straining at the core and the limbs.

By all accounts, things are going quite smoothly; Pepper pokes her head back in to tell them that she’s just gotten off the line with her husband, and over two-nerve wracking hours since the first explosion has gone off, Tony and Peter will be meeting with the police for a debriefing and make their way upstate as soon as they can.

Of course, one of the fundamental laws of the universe still hold true: anything that can go wrong _will_ go wrong. 

Which is to say: out of nowhere but always less of a shock than it should be, things start to go south in the blink of an eye.

__

Or maybe, more aptly put, the flicker of a screen.

It cuts the news broadcast and instead pans to an empty street in Manhattan save for several police vehicles—big, rectangular vans—and the eerie crunch of boots against snow and gravel. There’s a few other officers scattered about, but they’re mostly mingling at the corner of the footage.

A voice says, “Are we on air?” Then, “Good, good, right on time.” 

A man, dark black hair and a plain face, steps into frame. He’s wearing a chunky utility vest over his police uniform, hands in his pockets.

The footage pans to two bright spots against the gray of the landscape, approaching the lens of the camera. Their pace is rather quick, Spider-man swinging from his webs while Iron Man maintains a close berth, repulsors matching Peter’s speed as they head closer.

When they’re just a hundred or so feet away, Peter slows down, suddenly hesitant. The glowing eyes of the Iron Man armour look over at Spider-man, questioning.

The other people from the bomb squad wave eagerly at the two heroes. MJ hears the man closest to the camera, now out of frame, mutter, “Yeah, yeah, don’t be a stranger. 

Why is this being broadcast—

MJ sits up and almost begins to make broad strides out of the room. Happy beats her to it, exiting the room and bringing Pepper back inside, whose brows are furrowed.

On the screen, Tony and Peter look like they’re thinking the same thing, talking amongst themselves, too far away to be audible. Planting _forty_ fucking explosives in empty high-rises is far too meticulous to not be a setup and Spider-man’s senses must have picked up on something gravely wrong. 

They remain in the distance, Spider-man perched on a lamp-post while Iron Man hovers right next to him.

MJ doesn’t have to tell Pepper to call either Tony or Peter to let them know what’s happened to the news channel—she’s already right behind where MJ is standing, probably dialing the Iron Man suit.

One ring. The shuffle of footsteps, the distinct sounds of metal creaking. Something opening.

Two rings. Gears and motors humming, clicking.

Three—

Iron Man charges towards where the camera must be and aims a repulsor blast right at it, but before the beam can fire an entire torrent of white rams into the armour, sending Tony flying back. 

Drones.

Spider-man is further away, latching onto a car and overturning it while directing the other officers to get behind him—and it’s just in time: a hail of bullets from a set of drones dig at and dent the frame of the vehicle.

Tony doesn’t pick up, and Pepper swears colourfully.

What happens next is a frenzy of activity: Peter webbing several drones to bind them together, smashing them with successive punches while Tony recovers, cuts through several other robots and successfully blows the camera to pieces. 

The screen goes black—but only for a handful of seconds. 

The feed returns, recording at a different, airborne angle. The dark-haired man is surrounded by more drones—a veritable school of them—in the eye of the storm, wearing a self-satisfied smile on his face. 

“Try to call them again,” MJ tells Pepper, “or at least send them a message somehow—they probably don’t realize this guy is still recording.” 

The man’s face grows pixelated, shuddering in place a few times before he places a hand over his skin and tugs.

The air leaves MJ’s body.

“I—I thought he was dead,” she whispers. Happy grumbles in agreement.

“_Wow_,” Beck shouts over the chaos around him, holding a hand at his brow as if to block the glare of the sun. “I was just aiming to get Spidey here—but Iron Man decided to attend too and grace us with his presence? Life is full of surprises.”

Tony fires a beam that cuts through several of the robots like a hot knife through butter, and Peter makes use of some of the falling parts as something to puncture the other drones. 

The camera follows Beck as he ducks away from the line of fire and rushes towards a second police van, headed to the back doors of the vehicle. Probably chock full of even more drones.

Spider-man moves to intercept, fingers arching towards his wrists to fire another round of webs and—

Nothing comes out.

His primary cartridges are empty from hours of racing through the Manhattan. His suit is efficient—it takes just a millisecond for the suit’s reserves to click in place.

But a millisecond late is all it takes.

What happens next, MJ sees in slow motion.

Peter is thrown back by a hard impact square to the chest, a drone ramming against his solar plexus. It flies both itself and Spider-man up, up, up in the air with an astonishing speed. Then a thinner blur of metal trails just behind, attaching to Peter’s wrists to force his arms behind his back.

In the background audio, Beck whistles. 

Spider-man, still stunned and winded, begins to fall. Something flies towards his legs and wraps around his ankles, locking them together.

Iron Man fires up his repulsors to catch him—and the drone that hit Peter on the chest turns and fires. The rounds do not pierce his armour, but it halts Tony just long enough that he has to take a nosedive to match Spider-man’s trajectory.

Tony extends an arm to catch Peter before a fourth drone, in lieu of firing bullets, rams against the repulsors at the armour’s heels, knocking the man off balance. Several more come out of the woodwork and practically swarm him.

No.

Peter hits the ground with a crunch and a shout of pain, head planted against the concrete. 

Beside her, May jolts with a sound of distress. 

No, no, _no_.

MJ finds herself unable to look away from the screen. Her attention is singular, locked onto the image of Peter plummeting, his harsh impact against the road. “Beck—Beck was using the BARF tech, back in Europe—this might an illusion—” 

While Iron Man—in a way MJ can only describe as frantic—blasts his way through the shell of robots covering him, Beck takes casual steps, as if taking a leisurely stroll, towards Spider-man’s prone form.

Beck pulls something large and heavy-looking out from the back of his utility vest. It’s the size of a human head, long and narrow. He re-straps it to his chest.

Everything screeches to a halt—the bots, Iron Man as he is on track to reaching Peter.

Cold fear drips down MJ’s throat and all over her heart, pooling at her stomach.

The footage zooms in for a closer view—Tony is just a few feet away, hovering for a few moments before settling to the ground and retracting his helmet. He’s baring his teeth at Beck, enraged and downright feral, and even through a broadcast the look in his eyes is chilling.

He still has a hand up, repulsor ready to discharge.

Beck stuffs a hand in his pocket, exhaling a breath of air that condenses into a brief cloud, and puts a foot on Spider-man’s back. Digs his heel in. Under his sole, Spider-man tenses and grunts with pain, but doesn’t make any further noise.

The other hand knocks against the cylindrical thing strapped to him. “You shoot my drones, you try to kill me,” Beck says with no small amount of _delight_, “I blow aaaall three of us up, okay? Lower your fucking hand. Helmet stays down, too.”

Tony complies, eyes glued to Spider-man all the while.

Beck makes a “come here” gesture to seemingly nothing, before another drone comes into frame, floating in front of Beck, who sends a beaming smile. The footage switches, now just on Beck and Peter, before it pans to where Spider-man is curled against the ground, breathing shallow.

Beck crouches and grabs Peter’s mask, pulling it off with a swift tug.

__

“Zoom in, zoom in—yeah, yes—right there, perfect.” Beck makes a rough grab at Peter’s hair and turns it towards the camera, foot still firmly planted on Peter’s back. “Everyone getting a good look? Say hi, Petey Pie—you’re live.”

Peter’s face is covered in grime and blood, damp from dirty, melted slush. There’s a cut above his eyebrow that’s bleeding freely, drawing a trickling line down his forehead and onto the curves of his nose, meeting the flow that’s exiting his nostrils. Despite the glassiness in his eyes, he glares at the lens and grunts with pain when he feels Beck shift again, moving his foot deeper into the curve of his spine.

The drone zooms out, back out to Beck. With a flourish, he says, “Ladies and gents—meet your friendly neighborhood Spider-man.” He clears his throat. “Peter Parker.”

MJ thinks he hears Pepper talking to someone—something about backup, tapping and cutting the broadcast short.

It’s too late now, MJ thinks. Peter’s face has been made public. The news will circulate worldwide in minutes. Beside her, May is frozen, too stunned to move.

Quentin Beck turns his attention to Tony, who’s eyes are flitting from place to place. Looking for some opening, some sort of opportunity to finish the psychopath off without reducing himself and Peter to bits.

“Kid is so stubborn.” Beck’s snarling, eyes wild, tempestuous, like a predator. “I dangled your dead fucking body in front of him and he still wouldn’t contact you. I worked so hard on that render.”

The furrow of Tony’s brows drops, replaced with flat, blank shock. 

Under Beck’s boot, Peter, already struggling against the restraints around his limbs, groans. His wrists jostle the restraints.

“What do you _want_,” Tony blurts, desperate, “if you want something, I’ll do it—”

“What? You think you have something I want?”

Tony recoils. “I—” 

“_Tony, don’t_—” 

Beck kicks at Peter, using his foot to flip the boy onto his back before stomping on his ribcage. 

Tony lurches forward, just barely keeping himself from charging, but Beck just gives him a wry look and pats the bomb on his chest again. The younger man grins. “I just want you both dead,” he says.

The drones—at least two dozen of them—are all hovering between the three figures among the wreckage. Repulsor damaged bots lay damaged on the ground side-by-side with ones bound by webbing, on asphalt with bullet-hole engravings.

“Guess he is like you. No appreciation,” he adds, voice pitching louder before it approaches a roar, “for a lifetime worth of work. Wasting all my effort to a godforsaken—a goddamn child in a spider costume!”

The veins of the man’s neck are straining as Beck begins to shake with barely contained rage. “To some _man-child_.” His hands vibrate as his gesticulates, face red from exertion. He takes a deep breath. “And his boy wonder.”

Peter thrashes and grunts and wheezes, still pulling at the cuffs. Pulling, pulling, tugging. Straining with all of his dwindling might.

Beck scoffs as he pokes at Peter’s ribs, making the boy flinch. “Give it a rest, kid,” he says, “I got those made special.” 

“Tony,” Peter rasps, “_leave_, now—”

“What—no, I can’t—”

“Oh, gosh Peter, spoiler alert,” Beck says. His fingers move up to massage his temples before giving a wave at the camera. “Yeah, yeah, folks—villainous monologue’s almost over,” he says. “And finally—”

Against the ground, Peter is shaking from exertion. “Leave! Just get out now—I'll be fine—”

Beck carries on talking, fishing out a remote from his utility belt. “If I can’t die a hero,” he mutters, slow and steady, “I’ll take them down with me.”

The cuffs snap.

Peter, like lightning, rams an elbow against the curve of Beck’s knees with a force so great that MJ hears the sickening snap of bones. He makes a hasty grab at the device, quickly crushing it under his grip. Tony reacts immediately, surging forward and throwing the other man several meters across the landscape like he weighs nothing.

May breathes out a sigh of relief so deep that she practically collapses against the couch.

Bending down, Peter breaks the chain connecting his two ankles as well with trembling, shivering hands and a wild look on his face. Tony finally gets to Peter, moving to cradle the boy’s face. Peter doesn’t even react for a split second, probably concussed out of his mind.

In the final frames before the broadcast signal cuts, Peter snaps to alertness out of nowhere—

It takes fractions of a second for the drones to collectively self-destruct. 

Peter is still faster as he shoves Tony harshly against the ground, putting himself between the older man and the incoming blast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay!


	3. city's breaking, everybody shaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from stayin' alive by the bee gees because i think i'm funny
> 
> the chapter count has been extended ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> trigger warnings: this chapter has some description of blood and injury. a character also has a panic attack. tread carefully if either of those things are something you're worried about!
> 
> without further ado, i present: mj being stressed out of her mind for nearly nine thousand words, and a bunch of comic book science that i _tried_ to make decently accurate. but. hey. i plead artistic license.

The room breaks out into a flurry of activity.

Frantic, like cockroaches scattering at the flicker of a light coming alive, desperate to tuck themselves away to save their hides.

MJ is still, hands still in her lap. She hasn’t moved and May is saying something to Happy, her voice pitching higher and rising in volume, Pepper has a device at her ear, and she doesn’t understand a damn thing.

The sounds are all muffled, far away. The afterimage of the flames, the _heat_, the—Peter being accelerated to the ground by a swarm of machines, talons grabbing and clinging and gouging into soft tissue, Peter’s dazed, open-mouthed expression as Tony held him, like he barely knew where he was.

The—too out of it, so badly hurt, and even then, even then, powering through it to put himself between Tony and the—

It’s burned into her retinas, bright and blinding; the flames lashing out. Intense, even though the distance of a television. Like boiling pustules against fallen debris and concrete. Swarming over every surface, deranged and famished for fuel.

Fuck, fuck, what the _fuck_—

Someone is jostling her. Shaking her. There are two hands clasped firmly around her shoulders, firm, not carelessly tight enough to be painful, but nearly there. And it shoves through the fog that’s building through her mind, just enough that she snaps back to attention, stumbling back into some higher form of awareness.

“—boss has placed him in the Iron Man suit, Miss Potts.”

FRIDAY.

MJ’s face-to-face with May, who now has a palm pressed against the back of MJ’s neck, rubbing small circles. Her lips are pursed into a flat line and she isn’t paying attention to MJ; FRIDAY is speaking, her tinny, accented voice dripping with urgency. Someone who was none the wiser would have never known she was a machine.

“Peter is en route, with an estimated time of arrival under five minutes,” she rattles, and God, that means he’s still alive. And that means Tony had been well enough to do that in the first place.

It’s not enough for MJ to will herself to relax, latch on to and calm down.

“I am reluctant to move too much faster, I’m afraid, for fear of aggravating any injury. His condition is… delicate. There are severe burns.”

Five minutes.

The new compound, much like the old one, is almost three hours out of New York by ground transport. Only five minutes in the suit. Peter just needs to hang on for five minutes.

“We need to get the med team ready for the kid,” Pepper orders.

“Already notified and will be on standby by Peter’s arrival,” FRIDAY says, which would have been reassuring had the AI not carried on. She’s probably funneling this information to the doctors and nurses, too, at the other side of the building. “I cannot perform a comprehensive mental evaluation; he is currently unconscious and failing to rouse. I am syncing with the Karen server for any relevant information. He is, however displaying signs of compensated shock—there is no extensive external bleeding, so it is most likely internal hemorrhaging. Not massive, as of yet, but significant.”

God. _God_.

Pepper grits her teeth. “FRIDAY, the compound hasn’t fully stocked up yet—”

“Yes,” FRIDAY agrees, crisp and clear as ever even as MJ’s gets socked by another fresh wave of fear for the sixth time in the past quarter of an hour, give or take. “I have contacted the nearest blood bank—Mister Hogan, may I forward you the coordinates—”

Happy doesn’t miss a single beat. He’s already out the door in a mad dash towards the hangars.

Is there enough time?

The jets, like the Iron Man suits, are perfectly capable of breaking the sound barrier, but Happy has to get there, load up, get back, _and_ get the supplies to the medical wing.

_Trying not to cut corners_, here, Tony had said earlier today. MJ is stiff, frozen, trying her best to listen because everything is so, so bad, _this isn’t something she can even begin to help fix, how did things go south so fast_? She can’t even react. It doesn’t feel real.

“Blood oxygen saturation is at 85.83 percent,” FRIDAY says, “and dropping. Oxygen reserves have been activated within the suit; that is the extent of support I can provide for the moment. As a rough estimate he should not progress into overt shock for another sixteen minutes.”

If it gets that far organ damage comes next. Tissue starved of oxygen, cells dying. Skin going blue-purple-violet, down the rainbow. Next will be stroke or cardiac arrest. A slow, agonising death.

Pepper swears.

“That’s not enough time,” May says. She’s not rubbing at MJ’s neck anymore. Her fingers are fisted against the hem of MJ’s neckline, knuckles against her nape. 

MJ blinks. They’ll need to buy Happy time, somehow. Any second they can get.

Do more than react. Move, move, _speak_.

“FRIDAY,” she says, as steadily as can be, “what’s Peter’s blood type?”

“B negative.”

That’s all she needs to know and MJ thanks every goddamn good and holy thing that she’d signed up for a blood drive on a whim after her seventeenth birthday. Small mercies. Big mercies. “I’m—I can—”

May stares at her like she’s trying to figure out what’s going on.

“I can,” she says again. She stands. Yanks May’s arm harder than she needs, tries to make sure whatever she says next isn’t word salad. “I’m O negative, I meet all eligibility criteria, please, I’ve done this before and it’ll take less than ten minutes if we’re quick—we—we have to _go_, the medical wing has to have the equipment set up at the very least.”

MJ sounds foreign to her own ears. So shaky. Can’t stop stammering.

“We do, Miss Jones,” FRIDAY interjects. “I can guide you to the correct facilities.”

May reboots. When she straightens and says, “Alright; we better hurry,” MJ almost chokes with relief.

__

It took three minutes to get the right area of the compound. Place is fucking huge. Labyrinthine, or damn near close to being one if it weren’t for FRIDAY’s directions suffusing through the ceilings and walls.

Two and a half minutes of one of the outrageous displays of hyper-efficiency MJ has ever seen from May—from anyone, really, adrenaline is an incredible thing—to get everything set up. Nine minutes—the longest nine minutes of her life—for MJ to lose a pint of blood. At some point another woman, from the med team, maybe, had entered the room as well.

The second it was done May had pressed a cotton ball to the crook of MJ’s elbow and _bolted_ with the medic. MJ could only watch her go, lightheaded and heavy against the cot, and had closed her eyes, waiting until she would be more stable on her feet. FRIDAY keeps her company.

Peter had started to show symptoms of shock by the time his first transfusion had started.

There is a faint ache at the bend of the left arm, dull and pulsing where May had shunted the needle into her vein. MJ had watched the blood flow out of her arm, a smooth arc of crimson trickling through sterile tubing. With the hours she spends working at the Queens’ homeless shelter, MJ had nearly forgotten that Peter’s aunt is a nurse by training.

Neither her nor May are present when Peter’s unconscious form is loaded onto a gurney from the roof of the compound.

Later, when she gets a full report of his injuries, part of her is grateful for being spared from emptying whatever bile and phlegm that remained in the cavity of her stomach. Grateful that she’s only able to imagine the smell of charred flesh and burnt iron, rather than ever relive it. Later, when she is calmer, no longer pulled taut, shuffling through the pictures with irrepressible curiosity, the gags are easy enough to hold back.

For the moment, MJ only has the results from the primary assessment. For the moment, this is what she knows:

It’s going to be touch and go.

Blood had been emptying into the cavity of Peter’s chest. They had to drain it, get his blood pressure back up if they wanted any drugs to do their job. There are ruptured arteries all over his body to fix, drowning tissue in fluid. There's near-clean break of bone—his tibia, the left one. Burns, all over. 

There’s probably more, less immediately obvious things, but there have been no updates since.

She can’t stop thinking about it, imagining what it might look like. She doesn’t _want_ to—

—burns, fire, Peter part caldera, part boy—

MJ shakes her head. Takes another bite of the stupid sandwich May had forced into her hand.

Tony isn’t back yet either. It’s been hours. MJ hasn’t bothered asking where he might be.

The helmet of the Iron Man armour had been down. MJ wonders if the suit would have reacted quickly enough to halt the blast in its tracks. She wonders if the suit would have failed to match the response time Peter had. Maybe Tony’s face would have been burned right off, the heat eating down to his bones. 

Happy is still shuttling back and forth between the city and the compound for supplies and anything important that they might need. May has gone off somewhere—something about helping out with Happy’s incoming deliveries—so she’s alone in the operating suite, as close to the theatre as they’ll let her sit, with nothing but the buzz of the overhead lights and nausea for company. Every once in a while, someone rolls in a new cart miscellaneous items; the latest one was wheeled in half an hour ago—MJ thinks she saw stainless steel rings and bolts and drill tips. It looked pretty medieval.

She knows why Peter had to be sent to the compound for treatment. MJ’s read the files, out of curiosity. A standard hospital wouldn’t be able to treat Peter properly. Not when his injuries are this extensive. The medical staff at the compound, meanwhile, are trained to treat unusual cases, are obligated to study the medical profiles of everyone on the team.

She has to place her trust in them.

But they hadn’t been ready. The new compound still has no permanent occupants because several facilities were still under construction, Stark Industries behind on its usual efficiency due to bureaucratic lags between the government and SHIELD. Some shit about whether base of operations should be relocated to Washington D.C. over New York.

MJ wants to throw her food against the wall.

Instead, MJ gathers herself a little and takes another bite, chewing through desiccated bread and cold cut meat. Some of it slides down her throat, and the rest sticks as paste between her teeth, in the divot of her molars, stubbornly to the roof of her mouth. She has not eaten anything all day. She feels kind of bad for glaring at May when the older woman had told her in no uncertain terms that MJ looks like she’ll drop, and that the blood loss certainly hadn’t helped.

She kind of wishes she would, still. Anything over this waiting game. Anything over having her butt on the hard turquoise bench installed outside the operating theatre and waiting, running the facts through her head again and again and again.

At least MJ could run, back in Europe. There was always something to do—something to run from, something to hit.

Peter is a hallway away. He is—he might not—

No.

MJ takes another bite.

She’s stuck; trapped. The air, the world, is so still, here.

Her left arm hangs limp against the side; the puncture site is still throbbing. It’ll be pretty sore tomorrow.

MJ is almost finished, poking and ripping off small bits of crust of the last corner of her sandwich when footsteps tap and drag against linoleum. Heavier than May’s gait, sluggishly arrhythmic. 

It’s Tony, face sloppily wiped clean of soot. There is still evidence in his hair, singed at the tips, and residual gray caked up in the fissures of his skin. His flesh arm is in a sling.

Even several steps away, the man reeks of smoke and flame. He _is_ smoke, the way he is unsteady on his feet in a way that MJ has never seen before. Tony looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but everywhere. 

He doesn’t say a word when MJ looks up at him, just staring. Upon a closer look, his eyes are bloodshot, a grade of pink just bright enough to be suspicious.

Their exchange amounts to a pursing of lips before Tony lets out a breath and settles a foot or two away from her, slumping against the wall.

The berth is purposefully wide.

Tony must get sick of the incessant buzzing coming from the ceiling because he eventually mutters a hoarse, “Hello.”

MJ goes for a hum. It’s more of a grunt from the back of her throat. There’s some bread stuck between her gums, a ghost of sweetness in her dry mouth.

Tony doesn’t really get the memo; even though MJ isn’t looking at him, eyes firmly trained on the floor once again, he draws in another long breath. “May, er, met up with Happy and me at the hangars. She told you me what you did.”

“Okay.” What else would she have done? Let Peter die of blood loss before some other complication ended his life?

“We normally,” Tony says, and his voice is still that same almost-whisper he’s maintaining to cover up any hitches as he talks, “we normally keep whole blood from everyone on roster at the compound—stuff lasts about a month—and a steady supply of plasma, too—”

MJ blinks a few times, fast.

“So,” he adds, “it would’ve been an awful catch-22 if you weren’t there—the compound didn’t have the supplies, the city’s hospitals didn’t have the skills, so, really, _thank you_—”

“Don’t.” Her throat is tight. This is a conversation she’d prefer to avoid. No fucking thanks, she’s not going to listen to how narrowly they’d prevented Peter’s condition from crossing over a line and out of reach, beyond saving. 

Tony’s jaw clicks shut. “Alright. Fair enough,” he concedes. “She did mention that you’ve barely had anything to eat or drink, which is a big no post blood donation. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No.” Blinking faster.

“Juice, maybe? That’s pretty standard fare.”

“_No_,” she says quickly, vehement.

“Kiddo, believe me when I say I get why you don’t want anything right now, but—”

“No, for _fucks_ sake.”

And she’s shouting.

“I can’t believe—people put so much _faith_—in _this_—” And there is a blinding need for her to run and yell and raise her voice. She gestures, furious, to the corridors, face hot. It’s incredible, how ill-equipped they had been to help Peter, how hardly anyone had even been around to help disarm all the bombs earlier in the day when New York is an epicentre intergalactic activity. Fuck that he’s Spider-man.

He’s seventeen.

And Beck. Beck. _Beck_.

He was supposed to be a long-rotten corpse, by now. Fading to obscurity. How sloppy can SHIELD _get_ to let someone so dangerous slip through the cracks? What else, who else is at risk because people can’t do their goddamn job?

Who else is out there? What do they have at their disposal?

“Just—how could you all be so careless, how—” she tries again, and Tony is just staring at her, brown-pink eyes blown open. “Just—fucking _shit_—”

The venom—the volume—is surprising to _her_, because even right now she knows that her anger is misdirected, that Tony really couldn’t have done much for the under-preparation at the compound. Wasn’t the one who instigated SHIELD’s mess. It’s irrational that she wants to scream at Tony because it was Beck’s fault, not his that Peter might—

—and she hates it, hates not thinking straight.

Her chest is tight, her fingers are cold, Peter had been dying, he still could. He could die, he could _die_.

Her heart is hammering and it _hurts_, flaring out and thrashing in her chest.

“MJ,” Tony says, sounding far away, like she’s in a bubble. Maybe it’s just because it’s hushed, and careful, and tight with concern. Like he understands what she’s grappling to express through her postponed rant.

He scooches closer, and MJ wills herself not to flinch back against the wall.

“Michelle,” he says again, and God, MJ is frustrated. She is so, so angry—the air that gasps out of her lungs and back out her airway is hot from the blood that it meets with each breath. Ash, bitter and chalky in her mouth. Her fingers are swollen with the urge to break something. Doesn’t matter what it is.

“MJ—hey, no.”

She is angry. Angry is blunt, it narrows the world down to one point, a singular focus. And yet it flays out, takes up the entire hallway. Angry is straightforward, and she can’t think in a single coherent direction.

Angry is leagues easier than terrified.

“Piss _off_,” she growls. What is the point, cornering her like this?

She is so scared.

That’s what that was, wasn’t it? Beck had wanted to inspire terror; spin out a tragedy that would etch his name into the history books, hero or not. _Quentin Beck is a genius. Quentin Beck planted hundreds of bombs in one the busiest cities in the world and no one noticed. Quentin Beck killed Spider-man. _Now everyone will know his name. They’ll spit it, whisper it, but they’ll know it all the same.

Beck’s delusions of grandeur had convinced him that the world had done him wrong, that Tony Stark had done him wrong. Tony had done the _world_ wrong.

Being outclassed by someone he’d barely considered a threat had been a clean break on his last nerve, and Beck had finally switched targets.

He must have thought it would be poetic, to take down Iron Man’s beacon for the future. Beck hadn’t been looking for Tony at all. He just wanted the boy.

_Peter?_ MJ thinks, wry, half-hysterical. _You made the varsity team. Psychopaths want your head on your own merit, now. _

There are hot tears beading at the corners of her eyes. She swipes at them, and then she can’t block everything coming at her all at once: the lump in her throat, flushed face, eyes burning. Her body aches, aches.

_Oh_, she thinks. _Oh no._

“MJ,” Tony tries again. They’re face to face know. She doesn’t remember seeing him kneel in front of her. He says something else, lips moving.

Then he has a mechanical hand gripping her shoulder.

“Michelle. _Michelle_. I’m going to take your hand and put it on my chest, okay, kiddo?” What? “I’m just giving you a heads up.”

Noise flows into her ears and converge at the crown of her skull. Sounds are matched with words, words gathered into phrases.

Before MJ can fully process what the hell he means, Tony grabs her wrist and settles her palm against the space under his collarbones. He takes a deep, slow inhale, over-pronouncing the rise and fall of his chest.

“Like me,” he says. “Like me. Try to follow.”

She’s breathing hard and fast, she realizes.

Her chest aches. Something has a vice-grip around her lungs, or maybe it’s her lungs themselves that are halfway frozen, almost stiff as iron. MJ squeezes her eyes shut, seals them tight. Her brain is overheating, and her fingers are stiff, frozen.

“Breathe, breathe, kiddo. Deep breaths. It’s okay.”

_It’s not_, a vague, distant part of her laments, petulant.

He’s trying to help. Tony’s just trying to help. MJ drags down the urge to shove him away and scream. Kicks it down the stairs. She wants the pain radiating along her body to subside.

She shudders. Some way, somehow, she manages to focus on the rise and fall of Tony’s shoulders, and makes a feeble attempt at mimicry.

Tony doesn’t say anything else in that stupidly gentle voice of his. It’s too strange, being on the receiving end of… whatever this is. She doesn’t want to be face-to-face with Tony, with him holding a soft, steady look.

She wants to see Peter conscious and okay and to hold him for the next year or so.

When MJ’s pulse starts to slow down, she opens her eyes again. She breathes, air still hot as lava and eager to pour out, to eat everything in sight, but she tempers it. She catches fledgling breaths between her fingers and shoves them down her throat, even though they barely fit. 

“What,” she finally says, trying out her voice God-knows how long afterwards. Maybe a minute, maybe ten.

Tony offers a small smile, meant to encourage. It is gone as quickly as it had arrived; there is only so much either of them can manage, right now.

Eventually, Tony speaks. “Good job, kid,” he says. He sounds so _sad_. It’s pouring out of him, through the lines and depressions of his face. “List five things you can see for me.”

Fuck. MJ wants to dig herself a hole and live out the rest of her life in the dirt. With the worms and fungi and whatever other soil creatures that exist.

“My hand,” MJ croaks out. Tony nods, encouraging, still inhaling and exhaling steadily. “The bench. Door to the operating room. The lights.”

They’re bright, fluorescent. The hum of electricity is a sustained whir, uniform through the entire hallway. MJ wonders what hour it is. Time doesn’t seem to apply here, in this little container of reality.

“Good.” Tony nods, pleased. “One more.”

“You,” MJ says, the hand she had on Tony’s chest retracting to return to her lap. “You look like absolute shit.”

He does. Old. Exhausted, furrows of scar tissue blending with wrinkles until they are impossible to tell apart.

Tony lifts an eyebrow, amused. This is easier. “Thanks,” he deadpans. “You too, by the way. Okay. Four things you can touch?”

MJ shakes her head. “I’m good.” She feels better—realer, more lucid, somehow. Crying does that.

“Come on,” he insists, wry, “it can’t be too hard. We’ll stop after this.”

Okay. Compromises are fine. “Uh.” She prods at one of her curls. “My hair. The bench. It’s smooth. My jacket.” MJ reaches out to poke Tony’s prosthetic, whose palm is now clasped over her kneecap with the intent to provide some grounding pressure. “Your hand.”

Tony nods, satisfied, and moves away. He gives MJ another cursory look, like he’s checking if she’s going to freak out again, and then moves back to where he was originally seated. There’s a bit of shifting around, followed by a quiet wince when part of his shoulder blade makes contact with the wall.

MJ wonders why his arm is in a sling; she’ll ask later.

It’s only minutes later that the older man, the stubborn mule, opens his mouth again and says, “I’m actually serious about the juice and more food, though.”

She huffs, feeling childish.

“Chatty tonight,” he quips, more to himself than to her. Then there’s a tentative pat on the shoulder. “_May’s_ orders; imagine the earful I’m going to get if she comes back over here to check on you.”

Like that’s why.

“You,” she says, “you don’t have to.”

A genuine _Thank you_ is at the tip of her tongue, but it fades to a wisp when Tony stands, stretches. He tips his head in the universal gesture of _Let’s take a walk_. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he announces, and it’s stern. “We’re going to the mess hall, and you’re going to get something to drink. Then, you’re going to text your family that you’re okay, if you haven’t already.”

Right, her brother. MJ vaguely remembers shooting a hasty text his way after he spammed her phone and then turning her device off. So that’s already out of the way—

“Oh, shit,” she whispers, stomach sinking all over again. Tony gives her a look of mild concern. “Ned—I forgot to text Ned.”

If she feels like this, how must Ned be feeling, being left in the dark for so long?

Tony, apparently one step ahead, waves her off. “Already had FRI get in touch with him,” he says. “Alright, let’s go.”

MJ grips the edge of the bench and hoists herself up.

__

As it turns out, Peter had slammed Tony into the ground so hard that it had dislocated the older man’s shoulder, even with protection from the armour. 

“One disadvantage of nanotech over metal plating,” Tony tells her. “It can be a bit _too_ ductile.”

Emergency services put it back in place, pinned him down for a good half-hour so that the man wouldn’t try to run off, put him on oxygen for the smoke inhalation, and then finally let him go.

MJ’s calmer now, after that messy, _embarrassing_ incident outside the operating theatre. Tony figures out that she’s okay with him talking as long as it’s hard facts, and the bastard goes quiet whenever she takes a smaller sip of water than he’s okay with. There’s no attempt at being subtle.

They don’t talk about how the surgery might be going. They don’t talk about the oversized elephant in the room.

It’s been six hours. The doors have not opened.

That—that isn’t a bad thing, MJ reasons. That means Peter’s still there. That means there’s still something left to fix.

Beck is dead. For certain, this time, preferably charred and blackened to nothing but coal. Maybe he died in an instant. Maybe he lived for another minute give or take after he let those drones blow, spent that minute in the worst pain he’d ever known. The heat might have sent his flesh boiling, bubbling.

All roads lead to Rome, anyway. In any case, Beck is dead. The words feel good. Musical.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose when he speaks about finding the body of one sergeant Miller, late-thirties, in one of the NYPD’s headquarters, all the way up in the Bronx. Unmarried, decent seniority in the workplace, respected.

His ID photo has the face Beck had been wearing—everything from the crooked nose, the cropped black hair, even the two moles off-centre of his chin. Miller had been dead for over twelve hours at the time of discovery. Found in a utility closet by the west wing of the facility. Not even tied up, bound or gagged; whoever had done it just administered a hefty dose of muscle relaxant, shoved the man into some cleaning supplies, and shut the door.

That explains how Beck had managed to blend in with the bomb squad. It doesn’t explain why the fuck he was alive in the first place, and why he still had so many drones with him.

“I thought he died, back in Europe,” MJ says. Tony’s toying with his phone from across the table. The mess hall, vast and open and empty, like a gymnasium. The windows stretch up high and tall; she can see the outside world through layers of thick, bulletproof glass. It’s pitch black outside, save for the occasional lamp post. There are skinny, juvenile trees planted at regular intervals, mapping out a path along new cement. 

Tony laughs, humourless. “Well. That makes the two of us, then.”

Her fingers and face are feeling hot again.

“Peter said Beck was shot by one of the drones back in London. To the stomach—was well on his way to bleeding out,” he supplies. “He fled the scene pretty soon afterwards, though, as you probably remember. SHIELD closed in on the area pretty soon afterwards, based on the reports I’ve skimmed through. They all say Beck was dead on the scene.”

It’s one thing if he’d managed to survive and was kept in custody—and a whole other to see him alive, free, and executing a grandiose plan that had to have taken months and, more likely than not, _tons_ of connections to bring to fruition.

“A mole?” MJ asks.

“Maybe. Probably, to be honest; wouldn’t be the first time SHIELD was compromised from the inside, though this instance is looking pettier than the last.” Tony sounds less sardonic and more devastated. “There’s… I cross-examined the reports. On the way back here. There were only a handful of agents stationed in London to clean up the fallout, and the recounting of the events filed from each are too similar to one another. Normally we’d expect the rougher, broad strokes to align. Not the details.”

_I could have caught this_, is what he means.

“They’re all in custody as we speak, and we’re looking into it. Rhodey’s leading _that_ investigation. There’s no one I trust more.”

MJ sees his flesh hand close into a fist, knuckles snow-white, fingernails digging into his skin. She thinks of the squeezing in her chest. How her limbs feel like they’ve been hovering over a forge fire. Tony must feel something similar.

“The drones…” he adds, eyes downcast, “that’s even less clear, somehow. The ones he’d used date back to the early 2010’s and have long been cut off from my servers, which explains why there’s no digital trail I can trace, and why he didn’t utilize any BARF tech—” Tony rubs at his face, and his eyes close as if he needs to gather himself for a few moments.

When he opens them again, there’s a sheen of moisture over his irises.

He switches gears, like he can’t help it. “Peter was… more shaken up by Europe than he was willing to let on—and who can blame him, knowing that a bunch of maniacs have connected him to Spider-man. We had an improved voice modulator for his suit in beta. He roped me into teaching him everything I knew about wiretapping, too.”

“Bet that’s a whole lot.”

“Oh _yeah_. I’m pretty sure Pete knows New York’s entire CCTV system by now. He even greenlighted having a legal team on standby for… something like this, should it ever happen—after extensive background checks, of course. But he still… point-blank refused to let me dig too much into it, the lout, had the usual spiel of how I’m retired now, blah blah blah.”

It doesn’t take much to know where _this_ sentiment is going.

“But SHIELD, as you figured, is obviously compromised. Our security is obviously compromised,” he says. “Maybe I should have gone behind his back. Let the same argument happen again. Let him be angry at me for a while, again.”

She can’t disagree. “Maybe,” she says. Maybe this could have been avoided.

He’s quiet for a while.

“I—Yes. Maybe.”

Always lots and lots of maybes to go around. A lot of regrets.

Tony gets up, abruptly. And walks away. The scrape of a plastic chair reverberates against the high roof, sounds bouncing around.

MJ watches him make a beeline to the kitchens, not sure what to think.

When he comes back, Tony throws two yogurts onto the table. They’re still half-frozen, and they hit the hard surface with an unceremonious _clunk_.

“What?” MJ says.

“Go-gurt,” Tony replies, tense. “Yogurt in a tube.”

She hasn’t seen these things since elementary school, when her busybody parents would pick her up from after-school care with a hair-ruffle and a Happy Meal. She’d finish the apple slices in the car and the rest under the yellow light of her childhood kitchen, her mom having already retreated to her study. “Go-gurt? Really?”

Tony throws his hands up, but it doesn’t distract from how his jaw relaxes, just a smidge. “Look,” he tuts, “I’m not the one in charge of the meal plans here.”

MJ picks one of the tubes up—over-sweetened, cherry-flavoured yogurt—and twirls it around in her hands. She can imagine someone like Tony ordering nonsense like go-gurt tubes and fruit gushers to the compound to poke fun at Peter being—well. Very, very young. Just to be kind of a jerk.

MJ remembers feeling big at fifteen, with her excel sheets for finances once she moves out. Community college first, to save some money unless she landed a big scholarship, and then somewhere fancier for the latter half. She remembers that unshakeable feeling, no matter how fleeting at had actually been, that she’d already equipped herself with everything she needed for the rest of her life.

The world feels unbearably large now, at seventeen. She tears open one of the go-gurts and takes a bite, the cold stuff making her teeth ache.

“You know,” MJ says, once the stuff has melted over her tongue and down her throat, “that reminds me of something.”

Tony looks up at her. He’s momentarily surprised that MJ is being more conversational, now, but quickly covers it up. “Yeah? Of what?”

“He showed me his first suit, one of the times I went over to his place.”

“The sweatsuit one that he wore while clinging to the side of a crashing plane?” he supplies. “Has give or take eighteen blood stains that no amount of peroxide will ever fix?”

“The very one.”

“Yeah, rings a bell,” he says.

“Like,” MJ carries on, “do you ever think about—you ever think about what made him decide that Spider-man should look like he was being sponsored by fruit by the foot?”

That was clearly nowhere near the ballpark of what Tony had expected her to sat, and he chokes on a laugh. “What?”

MJ’s been around Peter long enough to know that the colour choices were mostly because he just likes blue and red—which, yeah, is pretty fucking cute. But. “Blue raspberry and strawberry. Those exact hues. Rippin’ berry berry.”

“You’re right,” he agrees. “Christ, why didn’t I think of that? I’ve been calling him underoos this whole time—all the wasted _years_.”

“Maybe he switched to black and red for an edgier look.”

“_Please_. There isn’t an ounce of punk in his body.”

MJ hums in agreement. She finishes her go-gurt.

Takes a deep breath. Dignity out the window.

“I’m sorry for,” MJ starts, and she can feel her eyes narrow into a glare as she stares at the table, and not at Tony, “raising my voice, earlier. I shouldn’t have yelled. And for having feelings all over you.”

The _also, let’s please, please never speak of that again_ goes unsaid.

“Hmm?” He scoffs, dismissive, like he heard it anyway. Tony shifts in his seat. He grabs the second, strawberry-banana flavoured tube. The movements of the robotic arm are smooth and noiseless, a testament to the quality of the tech. “Wasn’t a problem, kiddo. It’s been a long, shitty day.”

MJ wonders if that’s going to be a thing from now on. _Kiddo_.

Tony is Peter’s. This feels out of place; it’s not his job to look out for her.

“He was trying to protect you,” she says, sotto voce. This, she knows. 

“Hn,” he grunts.

Then, to confirm, and because MJ has to know—has to know that what he did _meant_ something, she asks, “He saved your life?”

Peter always fights for others. It’s like a compulsion he can’t tame—and that’s not to say Peter is somehow innately good, on a primal level. He makes the active choice to do good, every day, and perhaps that is what makes him terrifying. His heart, so ripe, barely fits in his ribs.

The mess hall is quiet, save for their breathing.

“That is not,” Tony grits out, enunciating every syllable, “his job.”

From the way he says it, stale and desert-bone dry and flagging, MJ knows it’s the not the first time he’s tried to get that point across. Not even the second. Hardly the third. 

__

With reluctance and another indeterminate period of time later, they’re back in the waiting area. May and Happy are both there, now, and the four of them idle in a hollow white-blue hallway.

At some point, May pulls Tony into a hug. It’s short, but Tony leans ever-so-slightly into it, eyelids fluttering shut for a split second.

__

Peter’s heart stops.

They get it going again.

It stops a second time. They get it going again.

Peter’s heart keeps beating.

__

For a while, MJ ponders whether it’s worth trying to frame the fact that had been practically anyone else in an explosion like that would have died straight away as reassuring. Just to be a little selfish, to feel a little better.

It’s well into the night, the outside world still and at rest when Doctor Cho calls them to her office.

The preamble she chooses to start off with is, “First, allow me to make clear that this could have been considerably worse.”

Well. Great.

No one says a thing. There’s five of them in the room. Cho has a bunch of scans and papers in her hands that she’s adjusting against her lap, idly drumming slim fingers against the stack as she eyes the two men by the door. The woman, upon closer inspection, looks utterly spent, too.

“If you would all sit down,” she orders. Pushes up a pair of frameless glasses back up her face. “There’s plenty of room, and I have plenty to go over.”

Tony and Happy both sit, in unison. May and MJ are already next to one another in hard plastic chairs, the older woman rubbing slow, gentle circles over MJ back. It’s nice.

It makes her feel sick, but MJ listens. She has to know.

What is it like, to be the one to deliver news like this? Fuck, the people on the med team probably watched the footage, too, poring over it to better evaluate Peter’s condition.

“He could very well have died, as I’m sure you’re all aware. It is because he was brought to our care so quickly,” she says, looking pointedly at Tony, “that he still has legs, although the tissue damage is still extensive. He is stable and currently under close, constant monitoring for possible complications, but his life is no longer in danger.”

Cho pauses, as if to let her audience take that little tidbit in before carrying on.

“There are several fractures at his cheek and jaw. There are no signs of stroke, as we were able to re-establish his blood pressure to sufficient levels—Peter had lost an estimated 35% of his normal blood volume at his time of arrival, attributed to hemothorax and multiple ruptured arteries at other sites across his body. We were able to drain his chest cavity effectively, and found no clotting. Any penetrative injury is mild.”

May hand is back on MJ’s nape, warm. It’s probably a habit—MJ’s seen her do the same with Peter, on his grouchier days.

“There are no skull fractures, nor signs of extra-axial swelling,” Cho continues. “He is, however, concussed. His hip had been dislocated, and there is a closed fracture at his left shinbone that required the installation of external fixators, likely from falling at a bad angle. He has five broken ribs.”

God.

“We are letting his body rest in the Cradle, for now. He ought to remain there for the rest of the night. Bear in mind that it will only restore the damaged tissue on his back and legs, which suffered severe third-degree burns. The remaining damage will have to be taken care of by his own healing, and we should expect his breathing to be functionally impaired for a while.” 

Cho stops talking, a silent prompting for any comments or questions.

“Helen,” Tony says, faint, sincere, “_thank you_.”

May echoes the sentiment. Happy and MJ follow their lead.

Cho smiles, brushing back a stray lock of inky hair. “We’ll need to clear some more specialists for access to the compound—Peter still has a lot of healing to do that’s outside of my usual scope, even with his enhanced healing. Aside from that, we will update as necessary. Please remain available.”

He’s going to be okay. Peter’s going to be okay.

__

Maybe she should have gotten in contact with her brother earlier, when Tony had suggested it.

“I’m safe, I swear, everything’s fine—”

“Like hell!” her brother shouts, voice distorted through the phone connection. “It’s been hours, MJ. You literally just texted me ‘all g, get back to you later’—honestly, ‘all g’? Are you kiddin’—and then _nothing_ else. I didn’t know where the hell you were. I’ve called you so many times, I—do you even know what time it is?”

MJ sighs. Four in the morning. Almost five. Pretty much five. Sunrise in two hours. “It’s—”

“That was rhetorical.” A beat. “Oh, good lord. ‘All g,’ she says. What the hell is wrong with you. _J’en ai marre_. What the fuck.”

She can hear Andrew’s breaths hitch and grow increasingly shallow. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s been a wild couple of hours. I turned my phone out because I knew it was gonna blow up.”

Most of the missed calls and ignored texts are from her brother. A long, long string of call me nows, are you okay, please. A pang of guilt echoes through her.

Andrew laughs wetly. He sounds less angry now, and more a mixture of relief and sadness. The string of expletives he used had calmed him down remarkably fast. “I bet it did from me alone,” he says. “It’s just—MJ, I know I’m not mom or dad—”

“Hold up,” MJ says, gentler this time.

She squeezes the stress ball in her hand, cut into the shape of an arc reactor. It was in the nightstand’s top drawer. It’s squishy, giving easily under her fingers. When she lets go, the grooves of her nails leave thin crevices into the memory foam.

“You’re doing way better than both of them. Seriously. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. Really. I’m safe.”

A scoff, even though MJ can hear the smile in her brother’s voice at the compliment. “Flatter me all you want. I’m still mad. If I had a dollar for every time you died, I’d have one dollar, which isn’t a fucking lot but still a notable number—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” She nearly says _please chill, your inner theatre kid is showing _like the annoying younger sibling she is perfectly capable of being but decides against it.

Andrew stays quiet for a few moments. MJ hears him gulp before he adds, “I lost you for five years. Then London, then this? _Manhattan's been blockaded._ Do I need to start carrying a loyalty card or something for near-death experiences? Nearly perish ten times, half-off your next purchase?”

“Okay, I hardly ‘nearly died’ this time, I was not the one who decided when the city was due for its semi-regular supervillain event—and okay, like half the population in the universe also died, I’m statistically insignificant—”

Andrew does the infuriated “mmm” thing, plus the angry, audible breathing through his nostrils. They’re probably all flared up right now.

She settles on, “’Kay, ‘kay. I’ll die less.”

“Die never,” Andrew groans. “I love you, okay—so please forgive me for freaking out after you didn’t check back in for over twelve hours.”

Yikes. He broke out the l-word—Andrew’s gone full nuclear. 

The line is silent for a bit before Andrew pipes up again. “Did you know?”

Hm. The world knows Peter is Spider-man is, now. Somehow, it only feels like the cherry on the cake once everything else is factored in.

“Know what?”

“The boy.”

“The… boy.”

“Your _boy_, Michelle. Ugh, stop being so deliberately obtuse.”

It’s said with so much vigour that MJ audibly snorts. Yeah. Her boy. “Yeah,” she breathes, “I figured it out a long time ago.”

“Okay,” he says, carefully, as if wary of pissing MJ off. “You with him right now?”

“No,” she says, regretfully. Right now, she’s reclined against a plush mattress in one of the compound’s guest rooms. She’d basically been manhandled into self-care. “He’s out, and they’re still monitoring him really closely. They’ll probably let me visit in the morning.”

It’s fine, as much as MJ hates to admit it, to leave Peter alone for the night. He’s in good hands. He’ll be there in the morning, recovering. She’ll have the opportunity then to sit by his bedside, hold his hand—all that sappy nonsense.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“Yeah. It is—not for a while. But they say he will be.” MJ’s not sure if Andrew’s personally concerned about Spider-man. The beginnings of this conversation seemed to be leading straight into protective older sibling territory—which, if true, might just make MJ go batshit.

“Neat,” Andrew says. “Cool. Well—uh. Send him my well wishes. Good on him for being so dedicated to keeping New York safe.”

It’s stilted, and it’s kind of ridiculous how long it takes him to finish two sentences, but the message is loud and clear.

MJ feels a bit better, now. She kind of wants to hug her brother. “Okay. I will.”

“And whenever he’s conscious tell him I’m a little offended that I still haven’t officially met him besides saying hello and, like, making small talk for thirty seconds.”

“You’re the one that spends most of your time in your office,” MJ says.

“Whatever,” Andrew sniffs. “Do you need me to call in on Monday that you won’t be at school?”

“Uh... yeah, I think so.” She really hadn’t thought that far. “Actually, definitely. They—uh, Tony said a bunch of stuff about security being compromised, and stuff. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Oh,” is all he has to say to that. “Okay. I… suppose that makes sense—wait, do they know you’re connected to all this? Are you in danger, if you come back?”

MJ is almost always honest. This time she wishes she didn’t have to be. “That’s not off the table.”

“Oh.”

“They won’t connect me back to you,” MJ hastily adds. “My information’s been protected. I think they also removed our address from public records. There, uh, might be eyes on our house, now—just as a precaution, for now. To make sure no one comes after you, or anything. It’s, like, fucked, privacy wise, but FRIDAY—she’s an AI—doesn’t share data like that unless explicitly necessary. Kind of like a black box.”

Apparently, a protocol had been designed for scenarios like this, after Europe. For her, for Ned, too. There’s probably so many contingency plans, of all Peter and Tony’s designs, built on a positive feedback loop of each other’s paranoia. 

He pops his problems into a Ziploc bag, May had once said, and sticks it in the freezer for later.

That school trip had fucked Peter up, a little more than a bit. It hadn’t been too obvious to MJ, before, but maybe she just didn’t know where to look. Didn’t yet know the tells.

Andrew sounds pained. Speechless, too. “Uh,” he manages.

“Yeah.”

“You couldn’t have told me that earlier?”

“You were kind of freaking out. It slipped my mind.”

“Got me there,” Andrew concedes, weirdly mild, especially since he’d been ranting for maybe the fast ten minutes. His next words are said with the same amount of emotion as he’d defer to, she doesn’t know, learning an interesting marine mammal fact. The blue whale can weight up to two-hundred tons. “Huh. What the hell?”

“Yeah, I feel that. I… don’t really know how much I can tell you, right now, but that’s the gist of it.” MJ tosses the stress ball up and down before getting bored with it and settling it by the nightstand. “You’re taking that better than I thought you would.”

“Adult life is already so goddamn weird,” he says. A few beats pass. “I think I’m still processing.”

MJ snorts, rolls her eyes.

“You’re safe?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. Okay, alright,” he says. Gulps. “I—I guess we won’t be seeing each other for a little while.”

“No, we won’t,” MJ parrots. “They’re trying to keep traffic to the compound at a strict minimum for the next few days or so.” Tony might be able to greenlight bringing Ned over, though. Ned deserves to be here. Peter deserves to have be able Ned visit.

“Okay.” He sounds sad, subdued. “Are calls okay?”

“Think so.”

“Keep me updated, then.” Andrew yawns. “Get some sleep, for now. Jesus, its five-ten.”

“You too,” she says, “I hope you weren’t awake the whole night.”

“I was, dipshit, because someone didn’t get in touch,” he parries. It’s warm, though. “Bonne nuit, Michelle.”

She says goodnight and hangs up. 

Sleep does not come easily tonight, but MJ manages to spend a few hours wrapped in an unfamiliar comforter, in an unfamiliar room, fading in and out of consciousness. Impersonal and polished, like a nice hotel room.

MJ used to live in a louder area, before the blip, on the fourth floor of a mixed-use complex. She didn’t mind it; the constant susurrus of the city is all white noise to her, from the shrill chirping of pedestrian signals to the stream of traffic that tapers off once the streetlights replace the sun at night. Three levels below her family’s apartment was a sandwich shop and a tattoo parlour. Her and Andrew live in a bungalow now, eight blocks from their former home. It’s a squat wooden structure along a long line of condos and houses.

The compound is noiseless. MJ keeps her eyes shut, and all she can hear are her own breaths fanning against the pillows.

__

MJ flits between resting and what seemed vaguely like sleep for three hours or so.

Sunday morning, she scrubs her hands and forearms with foamy soap at a hygiene station near Peter’s room. Her skin is still warm from the blast of hot water when she finally steps inside.

She spots Tony first, his back blocking her view of Peter’s upper body.

The moment he’s aware that MJ has stepped into the room, he gets up to leave.

MJ holds out an arm to half-heartedly block the entrance, but he shakes his head. He looks horrible, like he hasn’t had a good night’s rest in years. The past twenty-four hours has been an eternity.

“It’s okay,” he says, kindly. “I’ve been here for a while. I’ll leave you two be.”

And then he’s gone.

MJ moves in, slowly, cautiously. She sits down.

Like she promised herself yesterday, MJ holds Peter’s hand. Slowly, their fingers thread together, and she squeezes. Once, twice, three four five times, rubbing thumb idly against his knuckles. They’re kind of chilly, and MJ wonders if she needs to be a bit more concerned about his circulation.

Peter’s chest rises and falls steadily. The nurse said he was stable—is EEG is normal, his vitals are okay. Even with the cannula, the oxygen readings could use some improvement, but given the fact that Peter was literally bleeding out into his chest the night before, it’s forgivable.

He looks like a corpse. Corpse-boyfriend. Hah.

She focuses on his chest. The breaths coming in and out; subtle, but there all the same. The skin of his cheek, when she leans in to feel it, is warm. That counts for something. Her hand moves on to his hair, careful to avoid any stitches. 

“Hi,” MJ says, already kind of wanting to cry. “Good morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. hope that was alright! thank you so much for being patient with updates, i hope this was at least somewhat worth the wait. i literally rewrote this chapter so many times. there are 5 separate word docs, 4 of them cut short because i got several pages in and went "wait. i don't vibe with this"
> 
> also i PROMISE. soft content IS coming. 
> 
> see ya


	4. my hands, your bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowzers what a strange hour to update but honestly? is time even real anymore? 
> 
> similar content warning as last chapter for some medical stuff, but nothing graphic aside from some brief description of external fixators
> 
> okay! enjoy!

On day two, in Peter’s brief spurts of consciousness, he’s quiet and sluggish. The excitement of seeing him dazedly squint and twitch is short-lived each time; Peter is awake every few hours, from anywhere between twenty seconds to a few minutes. 

Tony or May do the same thing each time, greeting Peter with a soft hello.

“It’s Monday, two-fifty seven,” says May, the third time Peter is minimally aware. “You’re at the compound, and you’re safe. Everyone else is safe, and you’re going to be okay, sweetheart. Promise.”

“So, buddy,” says Tony, on the fifth time, “It’s Monday, and, let me see, six-twenty in the evening. You may or may be thinking to yourself, ‘what the hell is going on here?’ It’s a bit of a doozy. Do you remember what happened?”

Peter blinks, slow and unfocused. 

“Gotcha,” he continues. “There were explosives planted all over Manhattan. You figured out the situation in minutes—down to the type of explosive, you zit—and took the best course of action. You were incredible out there.”

MJ thinks Peter must register the words, because he tenses up.

“No. You did everything right, okay? This isn’t on you.”

Peter has been utterly silent the first four times, only twisting his neck side-to-side in what might have been attempts to figure out where he was. For the first time, he’s _reacting_, making a noise. Just a soft keen, smothered by his face mask.

“I know,” Tony soothes. “_It’s okay_. Listen to me, Peter. Beck is gone.”

A grimace begins to bleed onto his face in a struggle to stay awake; even doing that has drained his last few dredges of energy.

“You need rest. Sleep.”

He does.

The sixth time, MJ is the only person in the room. Peter is looking at her—or through her, but at this stage, it’s hard to tell.

“Hi there,” she says, gunning hard for levity. “It’s eight forty-two. Uh, it’s still Monday, if you already knew that it’s Monday.”

There’s a slight crinkling around Peter’s eyes, as glazed over as they are. His smile always starts at the lines along his eyes and ends at the upturn of his mouth, and this time it’s tiny, barely there at all, but MJ feels better than she has in what seems to have been an eternity.

He’s wonderful. He’s trying so goddamn hard, even now.

“You’re in the medical wing of the compound. You were hurt pretty bad, but you’re in good hands. Uh, everyone else is okay, and Ned can’t come, but I’m texting him constantly to keep him in the loop.”

It’s a security thing, but deeply unfair, nonetheless. Frustration crawls over MJ’s skin anyway, like an itch.

“He’s really worried about you. I am too, but… I guess you’re on your way to getting better?”

Way for a lackluster finish. MJ tries to add to her blurb, but Peter’s battery runs dry once more, and he sleeps.

__

On day four, Peter’s skin is deceitfully pallid, a chilly, ghostly gray. He barely wakes up once at around six in the morning and, shifting weakly—and the bar _really_ is not that high, but he looks shittier than yesterday, which saw him lying pale against the bed, breaths coming and going more harshly. His vital signs are taken at seven, again at eleven. No drastic changes.

Later, in the afternoon, when MJ brings her palm to an unbruised spot on his cheek, it’s—it doesn’t feel right.

She touches Peter’s forehead—just for a lighting-short moment, before her hand flinches away, like she couldn’t pull back fast enough.

Her finger is on the call button before she’s really aware of what’s she’s doing. Sandra, the nurse on shift, greets MJ with a faint smile before checking Peter’s temperature while MJ stands fidgeting on the side, wondering if she’s riding on a chronic adrenalin high, pulled taut.

Sandra squints and puzzles over the oximeter readings from the past few hours. In a tone so measured and urgent that it must only come from extensive practice, she asks MJ to leave the room.

MJ refuses to cry.

Within the next fifteen minutes, an ultrasound machine is wheeled into the room and Peter is wheeled out, in that order. They bring him back five hours later with a more than tripled dose of antibiotics added into the solution trailing into his right bicep. Yet another tube disappears into paper-thin bedsheets, the only indication of its destination being the slight curve drawn under the blanket, ending over his ribs. They’ve traded out his cannula for a mask with a tight seal, one-way valve, and a reservoir bag.

_infection_, she texts to Ned, _he’s ok now. _

_well fuck_, is Ned’s reply.

_yeah_.

_rmr to tell him i love him!!_ Ned says, after a five-minute lull in conversation. Like he’s not fused to his phone, waiting for updates.

_sure thing, dude_.

On day five, Peter’s fever is much milder. 

__

By day six, his body temperature is practically normal. It could still stand to drop another degree—something about Peter’s physiology makes him run colder than most.

“Hi, Pete,” Tony says. He’s dressed in Saint fucking Laurent for a press conference in an hour. Peter had begun to rouse while he had been editing his digital cue cards, muttering something about sharks and water and blood. Abandoning his tablet, Tony moves forward to hold onto Peter’s fingers. “TGIF?”

MJ levels Tony with a stare. Peter rolls his eyes and manages a soft, “Mmph.”

__

Morgan, according to Happy, has imprinted onto MJ like a little baby duckling. MJ’s never been that great around children, too subdued to match the exuberance and joie the vivre of little kids. Regardless, Morgan seems content enough to sit on her lap and read, occasionally bumping MJ’s collarbone to ask for a definition. MJ has a notes file on her phone of all the vocabulary Morgan has picked up. 

She’s outwardly… fine. Seemingly taking everything in stride, even. It’s hard to tell; no one is leaving the compound for safety reasons, save absolutely essential circumstances, and they have no idea how Morgan will react once she’s allowed back outside. It sucks. Tony and Pepper have mentioned that Morgan is more subdued, understandably clingier, and not too fond of being left alone. Both of them are trying their best to spend as much time with their daughter as they can, but there are fires to put out.

When she’s hanging out with MJ, Morgan huddles against her side, nose in a book or game console. Through a few conversations, MJ learns that Morgan has two stuffed cats—one named Cat and the other named Mackerel, has a budding interest in sci-fi, and is mildly allergic to bananas. 

At one point, MJ is suddenly immensely grateful for AP computer science when Morgan comes to her struggling with a problem set. After a double-triple-take and the surreal realization that yes, Morgan’s workbook is on Boolean algebra, they work on it together, criss-cross applesauce at a coffee table in the residential wing.

“So, an OR gate is when…” MJ starts, letting Morgan follow her lead. Her comprehension is already crazy good, and she hardly needs more than a few guiding words to go down the right direction.

“The output is true if either inputs are true, or both.”

“Right. So, if you wanted to rewrite that statement as a set of NAND gates, how would you do it?”

Morgan’s eyes are bright, lit up in understanding, and she scribbles out the answer in an unmistakably childish scrawl of glittery purple ink. When she verifies her answer as correct, Morgan makes a joyful “Yay, I did it!” and does a few happy bounces. Every ounce of MJ’s willpower is harnessed to avoid cooing.

Michelle Jones does not _coo_. 

Ruffling the girl’s hair, MJ asks, “You really like purple, huh?”

Morgan giggles, burrowing closer under MJ’s arm. She smells like apple shampoo. “Yeah,” she says, “Dad’s red and mom’s blue, so I’m purple.”

What the actual fuck; MJ is going to implode. She does not _coo_.

When Morgan is being taken care of by someone else and not looking over her shoulders every few minutes, MJ familiarizes herself with FRIDAY’s interface and reads about post-op complications.

Peter is just a foot away, head smushed against his pillow. His lungs are doing well, circumstances considered.

It’s not her preferred type of reading material and her head is swimming from all the jargon, reading paragraphs over and over until they start to make any sense. At some point into her deep dive, surrounded by annotations, FRIDAY speaks to her so suddenly that MJ nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Miss Jones?”

“W—huh?”

“Would you like me to reduce the amount of blue light?” she asks, unperturbed. “Your blinking is up 36%. It will minimize eye strain.”

“Oh… kay?” MJ says, watching, somewhat put-out, as the screens around her transition to a yellowish tint.

God. That’s weird. At least she’s guaranteed absolute privacy while in the residential wing.

“You’re tracking my blinking, FRIDAY?”

“I apologize if I overstepped, Miss Jones,” FRIDAY says. “Boss is getting old; he added the feature in lieu of admitting that he is becoming progressively more farsighted.”

“Oh. At least that’s not outright denial?”

“Indeed, Miss Jones.”

__

Days start to fuse into one long stretch of time, saved from total entropy only by Midtown’s teachers being accommodating enough to allow MJ to complete her assignments electronically and the progress Peter is making in recovering. He owes his powers for how rapid his improvement is. After a week of being confined in bed, he’s awake for longer stretches of time, nodding along when staff or family speak to him.

The disadvantage is that time Peter spends being awake is time spent in varying degrees of agony. MJ watches Peter do his damn hardest to power through it, but he’s always been more emotive than she is, and his frustration is laid bare in each twist and frown that creeps in as soon as he’s done waving goodbye to Morgan.

The first draft of MJ’s essay on the role of women in the Iliad is saved to her drive when she heads back in to join Peter after his five o’clock checkup usually wraps up. One of the first thing she notices is that the left side of the bed railing looks like it’d been crushed under a fist, crumpled like a straw ravaged by teeth.

Peter catches MJ staring that the contorted steel. He asks her how her paper is going in the least subtle diversion this side of the Milky way.

“Alright,” he says, “tell me about the condom horse.”

“What—oh. Geez.”

It’s a happy morning when they’re finally due to free Peter from his oxygen mask and fix him with a nasal cannula again. Peter is shining with newfound energy despite the ache of his ribs and chest and legs, excited at the prospect of speaking without obstruction again. It’s contagious; Tony comes in for his usual eight o’clock visit and there’s a genuine, unwavering smiles the whole time, even when Peter’s verbal responses taper off and he switches to signing.

The highly anticipated return of chatterbox Peter is unsurprisingly delayed by the fact that Peter’s throat is bone-dry from disuse. He’s denied water, receiving a bucket of ice instead.

Ice cube number three is almost gone, Peter holding the thing to his chapped lips as he makes conversation with MJ. She’s parroting Ned’s more likely than not dramatized retellings of how Midtown is reacting to discovering Peter’s identity. It’s a narrower, more palatable realm than the absolute media storm on top of administrative proceedings that will inevitably take place once Peter is well enough.

There’ll be time for that later. He’s seventeen. They’re seventeen. There _should_ be time.

“Apparently,” MJ whispers conspiratorially, and giggles when Peter leans forward in exaggerated awe, wearing an easy smile, “writing club is making a poetry anthology for you. Once it’s done, they plan to sell copies. Actually, they also wanted to get in touch to ask for your input on where you want the profits to go?”

Peter is in high spirits, but he somehow perks up even more. “Huh. That’s, er, honestly weird—but sweet?” he croaks, voice pitched lower than usual. He taps his chin, contemplative. “Maybe we could go with the Queens homeless shelter since I’ve worked with them before, but…”

“You can brainstorm for a while. It’s an ambitious project to start so close to the end of the school year and it’s barely out of the planning stages, but I respect that. Diamonds are always forged under pressure.”

Peter nods, a picture of total seriousness. “I guess I’ll _have_ to get myself a copy too, then.”

God, wouldn’t _that_ be a time and a half. “And another thing.”

“Oh boy-o, there’s more?”

“Writing club is collaborating with art club, so the anthology is going to be fully illustrated, and they’re charging fifteen bucks for a black and white copy, twenty-five if you want it in colour.”

“Oh my God, actually?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Oh Christ.” Peter’s face is a mixture of tentative delight and incredulousness. He suppresses a chortle for fear of making his ribs feel worse, dropping what’s left of ice cube number three into the bed. “That’s basically a fanzine,” Peter whisper-shouts, like a revelation, “and incredibly extra.”

MJ brushes the melting ice of the sheets. “Says the guy who made synthetic webbing and calls himself Spider-man?” 

“Point,” he concedes. Peter rests his fingers on the rim of the ice bucket. “They’re just matching my energy, I guess. It’s cool. Weird, but cool.”

“I’ll make sure they leave behind, and two extras for May and Tony.”

Peter holds up a hand in mock outrage. “‘Kay, a resounding _yes_ to me getting one, absolutely the fuck not for May and Tony. Holy shit, Em, I’ll get ribbed for the rest of my life.” Sniffing, he pats at his chest, feather-light. “The poor things are already broken.”

“I’ll compromise. Four copies,” MJ says, holding up her own while Peter faux-glares at her, doing the mental math. As she lists out Peter, May and Tony as recipients again, she puts three fingers down. “Sorry I forgot Happy last time. Of course he gets one too,” she adds, closing her hand into a fist. 

“Objection. That’s not what a compromise is,” Peter whines, batting at her arm.

MJ hands him ice cube number four to keep him busy. “Overruled.”

“_Hey_.”

“Yes, hi,” MJ replies. “Oh! One more thing. There’s this sophomore—Ned thinks his name is Dev—there’s rumours he’s planning a whole _sestina_. It’s going to be a two-page spread.”

“’m uncultured,” Peter murmurs, sloshing the ice around in his mouth. Like a freak of nature, he crunches it down with his molars, swallowing the shards with a gulp. “What’s a sestina?”

“It’s a French verse form with six six-line stanzas followed by a final three-line stanza. There’s no meter or rhyme scheme, but the last words of each line have to be the last words in the next stanza. There’s a whole algorithm for how it’s done.”

“I absorbed maybe a third of that, but can I just say it’s incredibly attractive that you know that?”

There is no goddamn way Peter would flirt so blatantly and badly on purpose, much less flirt without getting close to combusting in the early stages of being together. Now he’s waggling his brows at her, and it’s all stupidly lovely, minus the substantial traumatic injury.

They got to this point in each other’s company.

“I Googled it, crackpot.”

“I am deeply impressed anyway,” Peter says, and yes, the boy is definitely another inch closer to her face.

MJ lets out a long-suffering sigh. Peter grins, so slow and big that MJ worries his lips are going to bleed, seeing how cracked they already are. Deliberately unhurried to the point that her boyfriend is rolling his eyes, she rises out of her cross-legged position on the chair set next to Peter’s bed and stands.

“You’ve been thinking about this for a while?”

“You betcha. That oxygen mask was driving me _crazy_.”

His lips are in desperate need of Vaseline, and his mouth is cold. A pleased hum sounds out of MJ’s throat anyway, and she feels chilly fingers settle onto the nape of her neck. The drum of digits against her skin is a habit of muscle memory she’s not too sure Peter is entirely aware of, and it prompts her to bend forward just a bit more, upping the pressure of the kiss up a notch or two.

MJ wants to hold him closer, but Peter is still a delicate mess of wires and lines, a careful network that she doesn’t wish to unbalance. It been less than two weeks since Beck’s reappearance, and the strain of healing from a plethora of injuries on top of an infection have taken their toll. Peter is down at least fifteen pounds, cheeks sallow. MJ traces his jaw, inadvertently touching the tube that’s feeding oxygen into his nostrils and can only think of how distressingly sharp it is.

She pulls back and plants three kisses along his jawline, and a fourth on his forehead.

He’s always been a study in movement, hands never still and tap-tapping away with compulsion to keep busy. A study in agility, deriving joy from improbable stunts. Twisting like a corkscrew in the air, each revolution bringing him down hard and precise against his target. MJ’s not a massive fan of hands in her hair, but the feeling of Peter unconsciously tugging at a strand or two makes her smile.

Peter’s hand is still on her neck, looking up at her with a small, dazzling smile.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

“You smell like a locker room,” MJ mutters.

“Har-har,” Peter replies, still looking up. It’s a good morning.

__

Peter’s itinerary is full for the rest of the day; now that he’s capable of, cumulatively, spending nearly ten hours up and alert, nurses lob questions at him, asking him how he’s feeling. They discuss hooking him up to patient-controlled infusion pump for better pain management because Peter has a minor procedure coming up.

For the bulk of the afternoon, Peter is getting a more thorough check-up, on top of scans and X-rays, so MJ tries to get some studying done in the residential wing and calls her brother.

Peter spends the better part of the evening hiccupping and shaking into May’s shoulders. MJ doesn’t think he even registers that she’s by the door, held still by the whirlwind of hearing something he hadn’t intended her to witness and the very stupid urge to barrel into his room while he’s crying his eyes out.

His situational awareness is typically top-notch, because, again, MJ’s significant other is a mutant.

Right now, though? He’s coming down from extra anesthesia and is _entirely_ hopped up. To ensure that his tibia kept healing properly, a specialist had come in to adjust Peter’s fixator.

“Sorry—sorry,” she hears Peter bite out, slurring miserably, “sorry, just—”

“It’s okay, Peter.”

This isn’t exactly a scene MJ herself would want anyone walking into, if it were her.

She just… doesn’t have any clue how to proceed.

“It’s not, it’s not—it hurt so bad—”

“Your leg?” May asks, tone urgent. “Does the dose need to be higher? You have to be honest with the staff, sweetheart, if something is bothering you.”

“No, no more—‘s _fine_, I mean, just doesn’t feel great right now but I’m loopy as shit and I feel _so_ sick—”

“Basin?”

“No, don’t think I need it yet.”

Peter inhales a large breath, funny sounding. Never, not once, has she heard him heave like this, stumble over words like this—this isn’t nervousness or jitters. It’s being too flimsy, threadbare to hold all the vicious, swampy water in from spilling all over the floor. From painting the ground with grime and dirt. 

“Shh.”

Another sob. MJ can hear herself breathing, the thrum of her heartbeat under her sternum.

“_Shhh_.”

“Burning,” he whimpers. “Could feel it, could feel everything, it hurt. Couldn’t breathe.”

“Oh,” May says. There’s a catastrophic, heartbroken quality to her voice. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“Don’t,” Peter whines. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Only if you’re not. Listen; your burns were severe,” May says, and Peter sniffles, “but Dr. Cho’s Cradle repaired the tissue amazingly well. Your chest scans look good. Your leg is going to heal. It’s going to take a lot of work, but they’ll take the pins out once the fracture heals enough. Based on how it looks now Dr. Chowrira says you should only have it on for another three weeks or so.”

Peter huffs.

“… as opposed to months for people without healing factors,” May adds. “I know it’s not okay right now. But you’re _going_ to be okay, yeah? That doesn’t detract at all from how you’re feeling right now, or how you might feel later on. Whatever that may be. It still happened, and I’m so sorry you have to live with it. But you’re going to be okay. We’ve got you. Do you believe me?”

Peter answers, but not to May’s question. “The rods are really freaking me out. They’re drilled into my bones,” he says, words garbled but spoken haltingly enough that MJ can just make out what he’s saying. “Was trying to ignore it, but the doctor came in to adjust the frame and I remember when it broke.”

Neither of them speak again, or the volume of their conversation lowers to the point where MJ can no longer strain out the sounds.

Not long after her legs start to fall asleep, an unpleasant zing of stack radiating up her feet, MJ unlocks her phone and, pathetically, opens up the clock application. She sets a self-imposed deadline of ten minutes to stop being a tool, using the stopwatch to keep track instead of a timer. She doesn’t want her phone to ring.

Be chill, MJ thinks, keyed up. Which is an unremarkable state of being, at this point. On her newly patented “How is Michelle Jones today?” scale, she’s consistently in the realm of _I am but a newborn deer, and my feelings are an idyllic frozen pond hidden in wintry forest. Like in Bambi. _

Emotions suck major ass.

Maybe ten minutes is too long? Surely, surely, _surely_ she can psych herself up in half the allotted time.

Or not, absolutely not; that might be too ambitious.

Still in ball form, MJ shuffles over to the handwashing station and waits. There’s a mental script being drafted on how to conduct herself once she drags her feet past the demarcation line.

At the five minute and thirty-seven point-two mark Tony walks over and looms over her while she’s still in a squatting position, staring at her head, then at the stopwatch open on her screen. 

“Whatcha doing, kid?” he asks.

“Vibing,” says MJ, quickly and automatically, the same face of neutrality she’d begun to wear at four minutes. Very chill.

“I bet your legs are asleep,” Tony replies, judgement colouring his tone. He nudges her calf with his crocs. They’re a garish combination of solid turquoise background with flame decals decorating the sides. A holiday gag gift from Peter that he mailed to the lake house. Earlier, Tony was wearing Louboutins; his public appearances for the day must be over.

She’s good where she is. There’s still—MJ checks her phone—three minutes and thirty-one seconds left. “They’re not,” MJ protests.

“Ned is almost vetted to visit the compound,” Tony says, ignoring her, “and travel restrictions to and from the compound will be relaxed _somewhat_ within the end of next week. Just a heads up in case you need to head home. I’ll be happy to arrange transport to Queens whenever you need.”

“Cool.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony tells her, still poking at her legs with his shoes, with increasing frequency. “No more—” He makes air quotes, “_vibing_. Go inside or go take a walk.”

__

Tony makes her tea. His flesh arm is still stiff and healing, but he uses it to set down the emptied kettle between them.

“He’s generally quite good with anesthesia,” Tony confesses, sliding a mug over, “but the stress has probably been compounding for a while. The threshold for an… ordeal is lower, so to speak.”

She takes a sip, savoring the taste. It’s barley, her second favourite behind jasmine. Just specific enough to be suspicious, but not her top pick. Plausible deniability, perhaps. 

Under the table, Tony is tapping his croc-clad feet. “Peter’s a very easy person to be around, isn’t he?”

Yes. Yes, he is; Peter’s the one to count on when affability is needed. While not the type to diffuse tension, Peter hardly ever lets it escalate. Outings as Spider-man are always accompanied by corny exclamations of awe and terrible jokes if he’s in the mood—which is often.

Of the two of them, Peter is the more outwardly emotional one, but MJ knows better. He’s picky, slowly mastering a veneer of self-possession. It’s by design—though hardly malicious, probably not even intentional. Plain old good-naturedness plays a substantial part of it, but it’s founded on the _need_ to be—Peter’s enhanced strength and heightened senses demand a controlled temperament.

MJ doesn’t think herself oblivious; being observant is a point of pride for her.

She knows that Peter is internally much less chill, knows that Spider-man had been bleeding through his civilian life more and more. There are days where he is quietly angry at the world, at everything. There are days where he disappears for hours without meaning to with only police scanners and CCTV for company. He takes _notes_; better than the junk he has at school. The only thing he’s missing is a corkboard theory wall.

There’s no outlet now, no distractions. MJ knows, saw it coming from miles away, and is no less startled when it arrives.

“Yeah,” she finally agrees, when Tony’s eyebrow reminds her that he’s still waiting on a reply.

Swallowing his own gulp of tea, he says, “Responses to traumatic situations are complex. There’s the landmark stuff like being jumpy and irritated, not being able to stop thinking about what happened—but it manifests differently in everyone.”

“I know.”

“I know you know,” Tony butts back mildly. “So, while we’re not here to psychoanalyze him, I wouldn’t exactly say Peter is… holding back on anything. At least not on purpose. It tends to be hard, admitting you’re in a bad place, even if it’s not your first rodeo, and to put in the work needed to disconnect yourself from the shame attached.”

MJ toys with the handle of her mug, painted a dull green. “Yeah,” she says. Verbose, today.

“And that puts us—puts you—in quite the quandary, right?”

And that’s all Tony says, glancing at her, signalling at MJ to pick up where he left off. 

God, Tony _reeks_ of therapy. It’s, like, suffusing out of him in big, bothersome waves. Fuck.

Well, if he insists.

“I, uh. I want to be there for him. Support him, and stuff,” she starts. “I’m—I’ve just always tended to be indelicate with what I say? I freeze up when there’s too many feelings involved, I don’t really think about how I phrase things, and right now that’s something I need to look out for. Well—it’s something I should look out for all the time, but it’s especially important right now, and he’s upset which means that I’m upset and it’s just—”

“Deep breaths, Michelle.”

“—a feedback loop of getting upset.”

Tony blinks a few times and says, “Well, that was informative.”

MJ glowers.

There are more gray hairs than brown on his head, now, even deeper plicas and seams. “You’re scared of going about it the wrong way, but you won’t be able to figure out how to get it right if you keep ‘vibing’ by the door.”

“Please stop using air quotes.”

“I most certainly will not, thanks; you brought this on yourself,” Tony continues. “And you’re assuming you’re the only person that’s going to muck it up—I love Peter to bits, but he’s not perfect. If you think he’s taking something the wrong way, if he’s pushing your buttons—talk it out. Be direct, ask for clarification. Go as far as taking a step back, if it’s too much. We all want to be there for him, support him, like you said, but you’re not under any obligation to, okay? It’s a bit different; you _want_ to be a person he can open up to.”

“Yeah.” MJ gulps. “I do.”

Tony smiles, reflecting something like sympathy. Something like approval? MJ knows that Tony never disliked her, what with his awkward attempts at initiating conversation back when she and Peter had just begun to date, but this feels different. Images crop up of the Starks showing up for Peter’s birthday, Peter texting Tony random shit throughout the say, the time he nearly went mad trying to find the right Christmas present.

_Peter is Tony’s kid_, MJ thinks. _And I’m being mushy about him, to his face._

“I won’t fault you for being overwhelmed, or if you’re frustrated,” he continues. “You know that Pepper and I broke up, a bit before I met Peter?”

There wasn’t ever a public announcement, or anything, but tabloids seem to notice when celebrity couples spend time apart, pouncing on the opportunity to tear both parties to absolute shreds. MJ nods an affirmative. “I’m not… questioning my relationship. That’s a bit drastic.”

“No, you’re not,” he agrees readily, and carries on with his anecdote. “Anyways. I was a capital-D disaster. People like Pepper, Rhodey, Happy—they kept me afloat, most of the time, and I was getting by, but I wasn’t a picture of mental fitness, either. I think—I _know_ that I was a lot, and I’m not saying Peter is anywhere close to the disaster that I used to be, but Pepper and I split off. We were far too unbalanced. I knew she wanted the best for me—I might even have been better, short term, if we’d stuck together. But she didn’t owe me her time, and I believe that she did the right thing.”

“Okay,” MJ says. “I knew already that I don’t owe Peter my… emotional labour, I guess?

“It doesn’t hurt to be reminded.”

“I guess not,” she says.

“But you _want_ to offer it—and that’s great. That’s a big part about being with someone. It’s stressing you out a great deal, but you want to try,” he adds. “This won’t be easy. It’s okay if you need time to yourself. To not give your all every second you can.”

“Okay.”

Tony slides out of his chair, an ugly creak reverberating through the room. He pads over in his flame decal crocs and gives her a rough pat on the back. “Yes, okay, good talk, good talk,” he tells her. “Be free, little one. Spread your wings; be emotionally mature. Honesty. Crying in the shower. The best parts of life.”

“You’re awful.”

“I try, kid.”

__

The upgrade back to ingested nutrients happens remarkably quick, fueled by nothing but sheer, high-octane bullheadedness. Once it’s clear Peter’s neglected gut can handle more than clear broth and gelatin, they start to transition him to oral medications and mealtimes are introduced to his schedule. Exciting; fun. The most fun. 

Colonel Rhodes’ physical therapist comes in for the first time and Peter gets this determined look on his face before they’re left alone for the first session.

When MJ sees him next, he’s panting, as winded as the time a car struck him right on his solar plexus. There’s another hour before a few SHIELD agents are due to come in for testimony. MJ had already been interrogated thoroughly; the minutiae of every terrible memory wrung out of her. It was exhausting. 

As an example of perfect tact, she asks, “So, uh, how did it go?”

Peter is the skinniest he’s ever been since the bite. Blowing out a puff of air, he gripes, “Read the room, Em.”

MJ tips her head to the side.

His face morphs into something stricken. Then, softer, he adds, “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

As has become routine, MJ snakes an arm around his waist, careful not to displace anything. Typically, Peter folds himself into it—this time he hesitates, still and tense under her hands.

She plants a kiss on his cheek.

He sags.

“Thank you,” he says, every bit sincere.

“Okay.”

Peter rubs at his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We were just working on standing and walking around a little bit. I could only take about ten steps,” he says, something between his normal register and a wheeze. “So, like, just fuck my shit up, I guess.”

“That’s… pretty good, though, right? For the first time?”

Peter rests his head on her shoulder. “Mm.”

__

_will probably be back in ny next tues_, she texts Ned. There’s a backlog of schoolwork she doesn’t have the life-threatening injuries to be excused from. And. Well. She kind of misses her classes, decathlon, her brother. The compound is the size of a small town, but it’s bare and quiet.

_!!!_, is Ned’s reply. _oh yay imy_

_miss you too, bud_, she writes back. _we can both head down to the compound on the weekend_.

_hell yeah i’m so stoked_, he says, _you think i can sneak into their labs??? oh yeah and peter’s there too i guess lmao_

__

**Ned >> Michelle **

[14:47] can my boy eat solids yet

**Michelle **

[14:53] he’s officially onto oatmeal and other pureed nonsense

[14:53] so kind of?

**Ned **

[14:54] ok i’m bringing ensaymadas :))

**Michelle**

[14:56] that’s basically crack cocaine

**Ned **

[14:56] EXACTLY i know my way into his heart!!

[14:56] butter ;)

[14:57] you get some too dw

[15:01] oh just fyi when you hit the road and stuff they’re probably going to give you a panic button

[15:02] precautions n stuff 

**Michelle **

[15:07] a panic button

**Ned**

[15:10] yeah in case someone tries to kill you

[15:11] i got one like pretty much right away?

[15:11] :)

__

**Michelle >> Andrew **

[15:20] did you get a panic button

**Andrew**

[15:49] Yeah?

**Michelle**

[16:01] you didn’t mention it

**Andrew**

[16:03] On top of the whole “hello brother dearest there are probably people following you to make sure you don’t get SNIPED between your eyes ok bye ttyl” I figured you knew already

**Michelle**

[16:05] over longer distances snipers actually usually attempt chest shots

[16:06] it’s a larger target

**Andrew**

[16:07] OKAY

__

MJ gets an email from Liz Allan. There’s no subject line, and the few words she can read from the notification bar are impersonal, a polite greeting.

Starring the message, MJ resolves to open it later.

__

Peter almost died, MJ thinks. He almost died, if they’d been down another stroke of luck he really would have been.

Holy motherfucking shit.

MJ sleeps in short bursts and walks around the compound, shuffles her way to the mess hall Tony took her to, that first night where life as she knew it was touch and go. Watches the new saplings sway in the wind, the great huge nothing beyond the compound grounds. London planetrees: hardy plants that can live for centuries.

There’s another fever, low grade, almost nothing. While reluctant to call it a scare, it bowls MJ over, a ten-pin strike.

She catastrophizes in her own, faux productive way—and MJ is damn sure she is only sort of overreacting after what had happened last time. There’s a marked uptick in journal binging, now featuring opportunistic infections and complications from antibiotic use and normal flora going awry when you least expect it, a freak accident at the microscopic level—

This particular setback is brief, only extending into a few hours of an afternoon, but Peter is in a visibly pissy mood before they even realize he’s running a degree hotter than he ought to.

Peter eats maybe half of his lunch, covers his face with his hands and whispers, “Everyone get out. Please.”

She thinks of the railing. The discreet frowning and huffing, telegraphs of barely concealed unhappiness.

MJ swallows down her disappointment when Peter refuses visitors until nightfall. His reality for the foreseeable future has shrivelled down to bedrest, PT, and discussing crisis management on top of everything—of course he’s overwhelmed. Obviously, he wants to be left alone. Obviously, it’s not his fault that he’d want _some_ privacy. From everyone.

Sleep hardly counts as rest, if the bruising under his eyes is any indication. MJ has to be chill.

If it’s not medical staff poking and prodding—intrusive by necessity—it’s someone from PR, someone from legal, how they really can’t keep the press away from him forever. They’re screening hundreds of interview requests; Tony is there as a sounding board and to help Peter pore over which journalists to talk to, the list still long despite already weeding out any names with associations with nonsense agencies like the Daily Bugle.

“Pepper’s work, mostly,” Tony says with a flourish. “This, children, is decades of dirt.”

MJ reads old articles and vetoes a few people that make it through the initial rounds of elimination. Peter’s bed becomes a perpetual mess of screens and highlighters.

“Listen; Beauregard likes to throw in ten junk questions in a row to get your guard down. Then, she’ll fillet you. Definitely a top-notch reporter, but bloodthirsty.”

“I’m going to do mock interviews, aren’t I?” Peter asks. “For practice?”

“Beauregard sounds like a challenge,” MJ says. “But it’s up to you; we can keep her in the ‘maybe’ pile for now.” She flips to an essay on identity politics. “How about Vincent Nguyen?”

Tony straightens, interested. “Oh, let me skim that one.”

The work is dry, but important. MJ’s become a bit hypervigilant on Peter’s moods lately, worries sometimes that she’s overthinking things once his responses become curt, sentences devolving into grumbles. She thinks he feigns sleep, sometimes, and has to repeat to herself that _he’s not upset with you; don’t be irrational_.

It sucks, wanting the chipper, complaisant version of her boyfriend back. Then there’s the repeated stabs of guilt at the very thought. It’s not fair to him, but she’s just—she’s just tired.

MJ thinks of what Tony told her. _It’s okay to be frustrated. _

_Make sure to talk things out properly. _

__

Clumsily scooting to the left, cautious of his leg, Peter pats the side of the bed. “C’mere,” he says, smiling up at her, a gentle thing.

“If you insist,” MJ says, and moves to lie down next to him. They take a few moments to find a comfortable position, averting excess pressure on any spot that’s still in rough shape. She gets a leg over Peter’s tight to avoid the fixator’s frame, and they’re shoulder to shoulder.

Out of nowhere, Peter pulls out a bag of jet-puffed jumbo marshmallows and stuffs one into his mouth.

Wriggling the bag in her face, he says, muffled by chewing, “Want one?”

With some hesitation, she fishes one out of the bag, gently squeezing it between her fingers. It’s pillow-soft.

“Morgan snuck them in,” Peter whispers, like it’s a giant secret. There’s no one else in the room.

“You’re a terrible influence,” MJ tells him.

“You gonna snitch on me? On _Morgan_?”

MJ takes a large bite. “Guess not.”

Peter sighs contently, fishing out another candy. His hair is getting shaggy, looping at the ends. “I’m so happy to know that I’m not dating a narc. Hey, how many of these do you think I can fit into my mouth?”

“Five.”

“Seven. _Bet_.”

“Eight or you’re an embarrassment to society,” she says. Peter immediately rams three marshmallows past his teeth, and just like that, there’s cornstarch and confectioner’s sugar dusting his face.

Five and two-sevenths of a marshmallow later, plus an _almost_ guest appearance by the elusive vomit basin, MJ is back in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, and she takes a deep breath. Here goes.

“So,” they both start at the same time.

“Peter—”

“MJ—”

“Okay, you first,” MJ tells him.

“You sure? You can say your piece first.”

MJ socks him on the arm, light. “Go ahead.”

Sucking in a breath, Peter slumps his head down. Now, MJ realizes that he’s been avoiding direct eye contact for a good hour. Was he using the marshmallows as a social lubricant? Geez.

Peter opens his mouth and says the words, “Alright, so, uh—MJ. Are we okay?”

And wow, MJ was not expecting that at _all_.

MJ gawks at him, dead on and brain rebooting, until Peter gets sick of the silence and risks looking over. Then they’re both staring at each other, MJ watching him become progressively rosier, and he goes back to inspecting at his open hands.

“What?”

How in God’s name do you answer that? It’s so abstract, and MJ has not had the time to properly file and sort whatever grievances she may have in a way that she can translate to actual speech.

“Um,” Peter says, as eloquent as she is.

_Ask for clarification._ Cool. She can do that. “Can you,” she says, meeker and more scared than she’d intended, “can you be more specific?”

“Oh! Yeah! Sure,” Peter answers. MJ thinks this is up there as one of the most awkward exchanges they’ve had, somewhere up there with the timid exchange they’d shared back in Prague when Peter very literally, vehemently shouted _No!_ when she asked if he wanted to sit with her. “I almost got blown up?”

Tamping down the instinctive _well what makes you think that,_ MJ hums in assent. “Carry on.”

His fingers twist at the sheets; Peter breathes. “You know why I hid my identity,” he says.

“Yeah.”

A hand runs through his hair, a nervous tic. “It’s—it was a safety thing. I thought that the less people knew, the better. It wasn’t too big of a deal back then, but then I started getting in bigger fights with bigger assholes that wanted to get back at me, and then Europe, Beck—”

Peter sighs.

“MJ, he knew _everything_. How—how could safeguards against someone like Beck even work if they already knew SHIELD and SI’s cybersecurity? He knew who you were, he knew my entire class. He tried to kill you and it almost _worked_ and… God. This time you and Morgan were nearby.”

MJ has a good idea about where this is going, now. “Hey, everyone’s safe. They weren’t even after us; I don’t even think Beck and his guys knew that Morgan was in the city. And—and you couldn’t have known.”

Peter laughs, wry. “What about next time? MJ, your identity didn’t go public along with mine this time around, but I’m an Avenger. It’s a childhood dream come true and it’s _fucked_,” he says, voice getting louder and grabbing MJ by the shoulders. “_Everyone knows_. If they go after me again you’re in danger, Ned’s in danger, your families are too. You didn’t ask for this. And I’m—”

“If you say sorry, I swear to God I am getting up and walking away.”

Peter sniffs. With a small delay, he presses his forehead to her collar. MJ brings her arms around him, traces the ridges of his spine. The skin of his back is in miraculously good shape, thanks to the Cradle.

“You can’t be okay with this.”

“I’m not,” MJ says. “I’m stressed the fuck out. I’m not feeling anxious. I am anxiety.”

A sigh, and then Peter somehow curls further in. “I’m sorry I’ve been so moody, I’m sorry I’ve been trying to ignore everybody—”

“It’s okay, you’re—”

“I’m hurt, and currently an invalid, I know. Almost died, blah blah. That’s like, every other month for me. Doesn’t mean I’m allowed to be a dick.”

“Healthy,” MJ quips. “But I thought you were upset that you’re taking a while to heal.”

“That’s one thing, but I’m also, kind of… annoyed at everything in general? I feel like I’ve just been taking it out on anything that’s convenient, like the PT stuff. And I’m not stupid; I know how I came off when I told everyone to leave me alone. So yeah. I’m sorry.”

“You’re entitled to privacy, Peter.”

Peter nods. “But I could have gone about it better,” he insists. “I could have said I needed space, that I was overwhelmed instead of kicking everyone out without explaining. So I’m sorry, alright?”

“Fine,” MJ grouses. “I accept—but only if you stop downplaying how bad your, uh, encounter with Beck was.” Peter almost died. That’s—that’s not something MJ wants normalized. “I’m not stupid either; I know how terrifying it was for you.”

Peter pulls back and squints at her, questioning.

Might as well tell him. “I heard you crying, last week. I don’t know if you remember, since you were kind of off your rocker,” she says. When Peter doesn’t flinch back, just watching like he’s trying to figure her out, MJ keeps going. She cups her boyfriend’s face in both hands, running her fingers across his cheekbones. “I technically eavesdropped. Sorry. And I didn’t tell you earlier because I was freaking out.”

Shit, Peter’s _face_.

She quickly amends, “I just—I wasn’t sure if I was intruding on something I wasn’t meant to see or hear. But—I do wanna be better at this, I want to be here for you, I want the both of us to be there for each other, _properly_. If that’s okay.”

It’s quiet, just the two of them breathing in and out, just the roar of growing panic in MJ’s brain. Peter looks like he’s processing what she just said, like he can’t quite believe his ears, and then he bodily yanks her forward. And starts squeezing like a very, very cuddly koala.

“Yes,” he croaks, “that’s totally fine.”

She holds him tight. Be brave, she thinks. Be brave. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” she confesses. “I’m so happy to have you.”

When they scooch back to their seats Peter’s eyes are wet and teary as he says, “Hah. You’re crying.”

MJ swipes at her face. Gross. “So are you, bitch.”

“Whatever,” Peter fires back, still wobbly, still grinning.

He hugs her again.

“Thank you,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> .... yeah 
> 
> anyway i'm gifting this fic to the lovely ciaconnaa who has just been such a positive force since i've started posting on ao3. when i made this account back in august i was very tentative about writing my own stories and it's support like hers that get authors on their feet : ) she also seems to like datecutes soooooo i think this counts?? i think? 
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr, i'm mindshelter there also!!


End file.
